
Class L j n (o 3S. 

Book- *J (a 

CopyrigkE? ^ 



COFXRICHT DEPOSIT. 



PATRIOTISM 
AND POPULAR EDUCATION 



HOW THE NEW EDUCATION ACT 
WORKS 

"A widow told the magistrate at Thames Police Court 
to-day that she had been summoned before the Educa- 
tion Committee, who told her that her son, aged 
fourteen, who was at work, would, under the new 
Education Act, have to go back to school. *I think 
this is very hard,' said the woman, 'as I have only 
another girl earning a Uttle, and I cannot work myself, 
as my sight is failing.' She added that when she told 
the Education Committee that she had no means of 
support, they told her to go to the Guardians." 

Pall Mall Gazette, 15 March 1919. 

The boy will be forced back to school, to learn against 
his will, things that will probably be useless to him in 
his daily work; his employers will be inconvenienced, 
and the widow will be pushed into the workhouse. 
There must be thousands of cases similar to this, in- 
volving extra cost to the State for the provision of 
teachers, extra cost to the ratepayers for education and 
poor law relief, and extra trouble for the Guardians 
and Education Committee. — And all to keep willing 
hands from useful work, when so much of it is crying 
out to be done. The wasteful mischief of itl 

Henry Akthtje Jones, 17 March 1919. 



PATRIOTISM 



AND 

POPULAR EDUCATION 

WITH SOME THOUGHTS UPON 

ENGLISH WORK AND ENGLISH PLAY, OUR EVENING AMUSE- 
MENTS, SHAKESPEARE AND THE CONDITION OF OUR THE- 
ATRES, SLANG, CHILDREN ON THE STAGE. THE TRAINING OF 
ACTORS, ENGLISH POLITICS, BEFORE THE WAR, NATIONAL 
TRAINING FOR NATIONAL DEFENCE, WAR AND DESIGN IN 
NATURE, THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS, THE FUTURE WORLD 
POLICY OF AMERICA, CAPITAL AND LABOLTl, RELIGION, RE- 
CONSTRUCTION. THE GREAT COMMANDMENTS, SOCIAL PROPH- 
ETS AND SOCIAL PROPHECY, COMPETITION AND CO-OPERATION, 
THE BIOLOGIST AND THE SOCIAL REFORMER, HAND 
LABOUR AND BRAIN LABOUR, SCHOOL TEACHERS 
AND RAG-PICKERS, INTERNATIONALISM, AND 
MANY OTHER INTERESTING MATTERS 

THE WHOLE DISCOURSE BEING IN THE FORM OF A LETTER 

ADDRESSED TO 

THE RIGHT HON. H. A. L. FISHER 

VatSlDEST OB THE BBITISB BOABD OV EDUCATIOS 

BY 

HENRY ARTHUR JONES 



** Doth not wisdom cry? And understanding -put 

forth her voice?" — Pbovebbs, chap, viii, verse 1. 



NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 

681 FIFTH AVENUE 



Copyright, 1920, 
By K, r. DUTTON & COMPANY 



All RigMs Reserved 



u^'- 



^^^ 



\ .r9iy20 



Printed In the United States of America 



CU571346 



1. 



PREFACE TO THE FIRST 
ENGLISH EDITION 

THESE hot discursive thoughts were thrown upon 
paper during the ten months that followed the 
British retreat to the outskirts of Amiens. They take 
their general complexion from the events of that tre- 
mendous time, and reflect its fluctuating hopes and 
fears, its anxieties and agitations and suspenses, from 
the dark hours of April to the magic reversal of our 
fortunes in July, onwards to the present hour when, 
having defeated the Germans, we seem to be preparing 
to defeat ourselves. 

No book has ever grown more strangely. Starting 
to write a letter to the papers upon the edict that pre- 
vents children from appearing on our stage, I found it 
would be too long for their restricted space. On con- 
sidering the matter, I saw it was involved with our 
whole system of Popular Education. I therefore ad- 
dressed myself to the Minister of Education, and the 
first two chapters of the book were in his hands before 
he passed the recent Education Act. 

Meantime it had daily become more and more evident 
that the question of iN^ational Education was of small 
moment in comparison with the question of National 
Existence. As the vast panorama displayed its suc- 
cession of bewildering scenes, it caught me into its 
whirl. I was taken by that irresistible impulse which, 
when great events are happening, moves us to run out of 



vi Preface to the First English Edition 

doors and talk them over with our neighbours. I let 
my thoughts carry my pen wheresoever they would, 
llonco the want of unity, and perhaps of consisWcy, 
which may bo found in these pages. 

But I aimed not at unity or consistency, but only at 
a searching inquiry into the meaning of these stupendous 
happenings, and a faithful interpretation of them. Such 
unity and consistency as come from the single desire to 
speak the exact truth about all the matters I have 
touched — this unity and this consistency, I am sure I 
have attained. 

I have given considerable space and attention to the 
affairs of the drama. But in presence of the illimitable 
tragedy that has been acted on the world's stage during 
the last few years, the English theatre has shrunk to 
the size and office of a silly toy; nor at present has it 
any other meaning, or pretensions, or ambitions. I was 
therefore glad to escape for a while to a platform whence 
a man may hail liis fellow men with some hope of ob- 
taining an intelligent hearing for intelligible speech. 
There can be no revival of English drama except as part 
of a national revival and a general awakening to our 
national duties and responsibilities. Of what use is it 
to nurse a sickly orchid in a hot-house, while all the 
field and garden of our national life is choked with 
weeds and rank confused growths ? Conversely, of what 
use is it to hope for a national awakening to the realities 
and responsibilities of life, while the bulk of our popula- 
tion feed all their leisure with the grossest unrealities 
and trivialities ? A nation may be sound and vigorous 
without developing any great school of national drama. 
But a foolish, degraded form of national drama is a 
symptom of moral and intellectual debasement. 

Those who regard the great commandments as 



'^Preface to the First English Edition vii 

obsolete conventions will call the book reactionary. Its 
general tendency is against the present swing of popular 
thought. Therefore I cannot hope for any wide ac- 
ceptance of its doctrines. Let them stand or fall as 
the future shall determine. I hold no brief for my 
opinions, except as facts shall confirm them. 

However brokenly or mistakenly I have written, no 
Englishman has ever addressed his countrymen under 
the weight and shadow of greater events, or upon mat- 
ters of more supreme importance. Involved as we are 
in still gathering national perplexities and obscurities, 

I may be excused for lighting up my little lantern, if 
haply we can discern where we are and whither we may 
be wandering. 

HENKY ARTHUR JONES. 

II February 1919. 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND 
ENGLISH EDITION 

IT will be remembered, that when the word of the Lord 
came to Jonah, to cry against the Ninevites, the 
prophet at first declined the mission, and escaped to 
sea. Jonah was doubtless well aware that prophets who 
proclaim unpleasant truths to a nation run some danger 
of being stoned. However, three days' solitary confine- 
ment in the belly of a whale served to convince him 
that Heavenly warnings must be delivered, even at some 
personal risk. 

When at leng-th he addressed himself to his task, he 
seems to have fulminated against the Ninevites with 
undue vehemence and fervour. In definitely announc- 
ing the overthrow of their city in forty days, he clearly 
went beyond his instructions. Still, he succeeded in 
thoroughly alarming the Ninevites, and thus saved them 
from destruction. 

The question arises, whether, if Jonah had not spread 
a panic of conviction that their ruin was imminent, 
overwhelming, irrevocable — the question arises, whether 
anything short of this conviction would have roused the 
Ninevites to take the urgent and stringent measures 
which alone averted the impending calamity. 

Jonah was certainly in a dilemma. If he had not 
magnified the danger to the Ninevites, undoubtedly it 
would have fallen upon them, and they would have 
perished. By magnifying the danger, and persuading 



X Preface to the Second English Edition 

them of its reality, lie stirred them to repentance, and 
saved the city. But at the cost of proving himself a 
false prophet. 

The issue, although it was most satisfactory to the 
^N'inevites, was a vexatious anti-climax for Jonah. He 
was naturally angry at being left in the lurch, and went 
and sulked under a gourd. He would have done better 
to put a bright face on the matter, and heartily to con- 
gratulate the Ninevites on their lucky and undeserved 
escape. To save his credit as a prophet, he might also 
have impressed upon them a strong reminder, that they 
were only spared by the intervention of a Special Provi- 
dence. He might further have added, that it is not 
prudent for nations who are threatened with wide social 
disaster to trust that Providence will reverse the econ- 
omy of the universe in their favour. 

The Ninevites are now past being preached at, and 
equally past being prophesied about. Let us turn to 
ourselves. Six months have gone by since the Erst 
edition of this book appeared. The intervening course 
of events does not advise me to retract, or revise, what 
I wrote during the stress and uncertainties of last year. 
Bather, as the wheel comes to its full circle, I am urged 
to a more insistent affirmation and repetition of what is 
set down in these pages. No review of the book that I 
have seen has made any attempt to controvert the facts 
and arguments I have brought forward, or to disprove 
the conclusions I have drawn from them. They remain 
unsilenced, unrefuted. Till they are discredited and 
overthrown, they issue a standing challenge to our pres- 
ent system of Popular Education, to the confusions and 
fallacies of political thought that it fosters, and to the 
social disorder that it encourages. Let my arguments 
and conclusions be examined. If they are unsound and 



Preface to the Second English Edition xi 

false, I am the first to wish that thej may fall to the 
ground. 

Eighty-five per cent, of our population have to earn 
their living by manual labour before the social machine 
will work. We are educating about eighty-five per 
cent, of them in such a way that they will hate and 
avoid manual labour. Inevitably, that million of houses 
does not get built. Inevitably, it is the workers who 
will suffer first, and suffer most, and suffer longest. 
For two generations we have been busily teaching our 
masses what they are only very remotely concerned to 
hnow, and have neglected to teach them, nay, have for- 
bidden them to learn, what they are imperatively con- 
cerned to do and make. We have made manual labour 
ridiculous and repulsive to them. There is not a home 
or a farm, or a shop, or an office, or a factory in the 
Kingdom that does not suffer delay and obstruction in 
consequence. 

However, I need not strain my voice to enforce what 
is day by day more loudly proclaimed by the clamour 
of events. The catch words and catch phrases of the 
war — "making the world safe for democracy," "self- 
determination," "a brotherhood of nations," and the 
like — are proving themselves to be no sterling coins of 
thought, valid at the counter of fact, but the worthless 
forgeries of bankrupt idealists, not negotiable any- 
where. Even before it is constituted, the League of 
l^ations begins to jeer at its promoters. What else could 
they expect ? The first ominous result of the attempt 
to govern the world by a League of Nations, has been 
to weaken that good understanding between England 
and America which is the only assurance of the world's 
peace. Is not this a sufficient warning of the mischief- 
breeding tendency of a League of Nations ? Surely the 



xii Preface to the Second English Edition 

statesmen of the world have contentious matters enough 
on their hands without multiplying complications and 
possible causes of quarrel in a future whose con- 
tingencies and demands not one of them can foresee 
or guess at. 

America has rejected the League of Nations, rightly 
judging that no country should pledge itself to deal with 
successive threatening international situations by in- 
volved, amiable, abstract rulers; rightly judging that 
no threatening international situation can be wisely 
dealt with until it has actually arisen; and until it is 
so far developed and defined that each country may take 
that course which its honour and its permanent interests 
mark out for it at that precise moment. 

America has rejected the League of Nations. Will 
not the statesmen of England and France and Italy ac- 
cept that verdict ? Will they not forsake this perilous 
whimsy, own that they have made a mistake and, ceas- 
ing to fumble about with international misunderstand- 
ings that may threaten the world in fifty years' time, 
turn to the urgent necessities that beset their own coun- 
tries at the present hour ? 

Above all our confusions, clear cut against the sky, 
plain for all of us to read, stand the two opposing sign- 
posts, the one directing all our national aims and hopes 
and activities towards Internationalism, the other di- 
recting all our national aims and hopes and activities 
towards Patriotism. The time shortens. O England, 
which road will you take ? 

HEKRY ARTHUR JONES. 
20 November 1919. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAQE 

Preface to the First Edition {February 1919) ... v 

Preface to the Second Edition {November 1919) ... ix 
Opening Address to the Minister op Education 

{March 1918) xxi 

Cicero and the Omelette xxii 

CHAPTER I 
{March— April 1918) 

Popular Edttcation as it reveals itself in our Work: 

My old Carpenter 1 

"Artistic, si.xpence three farthings" 2 

A well-educated working man 3 

Dame Nature a harsher "exploiter" than the Capitalist . 5 

Working men cheat their brother working men .... 6 
Not a question of Capital and Labour, but of honesty or 

dishonesty 7 

A call for the Parsons 9 

Proposal to ship some of them to Kikuyu 9 

Robinson Crusoe and Friday's neglected education ... 11 
Friday's deplorable ignorance of matters that did not con- 
cern him 11 

Consequent economic stability of the Island 13 

Friday's capacity for abstract thought 13 

General education often the enemy of good craftsmanship 17 
Monstrous and ridiculous proposal to drill our boys for the 

future defence of their country 18 

Equally monstrous and ridiculous proposal to teach our girls 

what will be useful to them as wives and mothers . . 23 
Enlargement of dictum of the Minister of Education con- 
cerning general education 24 

CHAPTER II 
{April—May 1918) 

Popular Education as it reveals itself in our plat; 
The Secondary Education of our masses at picture palaces 

and popular theatres 26 

Its effect upon conduct and character 27 

xiii 



xiv Table of Contents 

PAoa 

Gradual disappearance of Shakespeare from our stage . . 29 
Dull imbecility and licentiousness of our popular entertain- 
ments 33 

The wisdom of good tomfoolery 33 

Hideous exhibition of chorus girls 36 

Popular Education and the quality of our stage dialogue . 36 

"I suppose you mean to infer that I'm hot stuff" ... 38 

Slang and its functions 40 

German arxd French criticism of the English stage ... 43 

The orgy at the beginning of the war 44 

The bishops get fidgety 45 

Rosy Twaddle, Holy Twaddle, and Revue 47 

Advice to bishops and clergymen about to advertise plays . 47 

Actors, actresses, scullery maids, and dung-cart emptiers . 60 

Children on our stage 63 

Discouragement of Shakespeare by new Education Act . 53 

Virtual prohibition of five of his most popular plays . . 53 

Our greatest actresses educated on and by the Stage . . 53 

Early training necessary to make good actors and carpenters 56 

French middle classes sound and acute critics of plays . . 58 

Children with a native talent for the stage 60 

Child supernumeraries 63 

Many of them better in the theatre than at home ... 63 
Evils and abuses of the stage caused and multiplied by 

zealous, ignorant bigots 64 

Invitation to them to abstain from pecking and kicking at 

the theatre 64 

Connexion between Popular Education and present degrada- 
tion of our stage 66 

Elizabethan audiences 67 

Their ability to understand and enjoy Shakespeare ... 68 

Shakespeare's true home the English theatre .... 70 
Appeal to Minister of Education to aid in getting him back 

there 71 



CHAPTER III 
{May— June 1918) 

Popular Education and Politics before the War: 

Political Dogma and Religious Dogma 73 

Impossibility of drawing up indisputable codes for children 74 

General education a very devious compass 74 

National Defence of transcendent importance from 1890 . 75 
Popular Education opposed to teaching future citizens their 

chief duty 76 



Table of Contents xv 

PAOB 

Consequent immeasurable cost to the nation .... 77 

Lack of vision and guidance 78 

The xinreturning wheel of fate 79 

Germans teach us what Popular Education failed to teach us 81 

BUndness of our poUticians traced to Popular Education . 85 

The housemaid's excuse — "It shan't happen again" , . 87 

Where lay the fault? 88 

Intellectual dishonesty the worst of mental ailments . . 90 

Endemic at Westminster 90 

Boy Scouts' movement more beneficial than school teaching 91 

IntractabiUty of "yoimg persons" 92 

Cicero and EucUd the safest companions for them ... 92 

Economic benefit of continuation classes 93 

Rosy estimate of its amount 94 

Not one hundredth of the national loss caused by neglect of 

Popular Education to teach our boys their first duty . 95 

CHAPTER IV 
{July — August 1918' 

A Leagxtb op Nations: 

Legislating for the Millennium 97 

The prophet Micah beats swords into ploughshares ... 98 
The prophet Joel counters the prophet Micah, and beats 

ploughshares into swords 98 

War and Design in Nature 98 

An automatic peace-machine 100 

The philanthropist in Laputa and his safety dustbin . . 101 

Man wiU never divine the strategy of Nature .... 103 

Possible material profit from war 105 

Greater certainty of spiritual profit 105 

Diflficultiea of constitution of League 107 

The master fact for osr statesmen to remember .... 107 

Germany's future attitude towards Britain 108 

Do we not know this nation? 110 

The League of Nations a fruitful field for German intrigue 113 

The servant girl and the fair young man 115 

League of Nations a futility or a danger 116 

Improbability of all the Nations being wise for all the time 118 
Dark anarchic forces gathering on the horizon . . . .118 

Governing the world by a committee 119 

The war after the war 120 

Victories of peace compared with victories of war . . . 120 

English and American commercial practices 122 

A League of Nations, sooner or later, causes war . . . 126 

Approaching ground swell after this tempest 128 



xvi Table of Contents 

PAGE 

Balancing alternations of peace and war through all history 129 
This law would be operative under class government . . 129 

130 
130 
131 
132 
133 
134 
135 
136 
136 
137 



A soldier always the final custodian of peace 
By recognizing this we avoid or shorten war 
Immediate and remote dangers of a League of Nations 

Hecate and false security 

War and the dark backward and abysm of Time 
War and the dark forward and abysm of Time . 
Canute and the framers of a League of Nations . 

American delay in entering the war 

American mothers and the war tnampets of Eiirope . 
America's unique and fortunate position 
Speculation on the future of American civilization and policy 139 
The Eternal will not consider our suggestions for a new 

world-civilization 141 

Our future civilization — the artist will be murdered by the 

mechanic 142 

Four possible states of world civilization 143 

The earth littered with combustible matter 145 

The two signposts 148 

CHAPTER V 
(September — October — November 1918) 

Patriotism and Internationalism: 

Apology to Minister of Education for continuing to address 

him 150 

The neglected Hampstead missionary 151 

Aims of Internationalism before the war 154 

No danger of War 155 

The good Scheidemann would prevent it 156 

The great illusionist 157 

The meddling old warrior 157 

Our sagacious Internuncio 159 

Crash! The war comes 159 

What shall we do with our opinions now? 160 

Socialists' forecasts falsified 163 

They forsake their comrades and their whimsies to defend 

their country 163 

Patriotism, a compulsive universal instinct 165 

Compared with the sexual, maternal and religious instincts 165 
Patriotism of constructive value in the evolution of the 

human race 167 

Competition and co-operation 167 

Faults of Patriotism the inverse side of its virtues . . , 168 

Persistence of Irish Patriotism 170 



Table of Contents xvii 

FAQB 

Consequences of Separation from Great Britain .... 169 

Every form of Home Rule unworkable 170 

Federal Parliaments the only solution 171 

Goethe says the final word on Ireland in 1829 .... 171 

Kathleen, sister Kathleen! 172 

Incipient Patriotism at East and West Gawkham . . . 175 

Engrafted Patriotism 176 

"Reconstruction," a misleading term 178 

Nations cannot be "reconstructed" 178 

Internationalists ignore this 179 

The Parable of the old township and Mr. Fervent Im- 

possibihst 180 

The general aim and design of Internationalists and Social- 
ists 188 

Internationalism will not lead to Peace ...... 189 

Who are the real enemies of the working classes of each 

nation? 194 

Internationalism strikes athwart all social structure . . . 194 

Internationalists and Bolshevism 196 

Mr. H. G. Wells gets a grip on Bolshevism and interprets it 

to us 197 

Mr. Wells gets a grip on the situation in Russia ... .197 

Mr. Wells gets a grip on the situation in Africa .... 199 

Mr. Wells, Uke Sangrado, has a panacea 199 

Mr. Wells allows the British flag to wave, and sometimes 

to flap 201 

Examination of Mr. Wells's African constitution . . . 202 

Mr. Wells threatens the Solomon Islands 204 

Mr. Wells prophesies delightfully about machines . . . 205 

Goes on to prophesy about mankind 205 

Defence of Mr. Wells's reputation against Mr. Archibald 

Spofforth 205 

Mr. Wells and Old Moore 206 

Gorgeous symbohsm in prophecy 206 

Scarlet Ladies of Babylon and seven-headed beasts . . . 206 

The sacred jig-saw puzzle 207 

Common defects and fallacies of International schemes . 208 

Alternations of commercial conflict and actual war . . . 209 

Commercial conflict perhaps the more deadly .... 209 

Our interest in sustaining the British Empire .... 210 

Our Foreign Office "bunglers and bluffers" 210 

Where are the perfectly wise statesmen to work these per- 
fectly wise International schemes? 212 

Tendency of Labour to displace its constructive leaders . 213 

Who are the men that finally come to the top? .... 213 
Appeal to Labour not to wreck and destroy the Empire that 

it has saved and fortified 214 



xviii Table of Contents 

pAoa 

New nations will be increasingly patriotic 220 

WUl press their own separate aims, interests, and ambitions . 220 

Watered down Internationalism 222 

Dulce et decorum est contra patriam mori 223 

Sympathy with constructive Socialism 224 

Greater proportion of physically unfit in England than in 

Germany or France 224 

Our social incubator for hatching and cherishing wastrels . 225 

Digression to Miss Marie CorelU and Cicero .... 226 

Return to argument on Patriotism 228 

Again, the two signposts 229 

Clear thinlvers who think wrongly 230 

Internationalism always destructive, Patriotism always con- 
structive 233 

Proposal for amalgamation of our planetary system with 

that of Sirius 234 

The Interstellarists 235 

Instinct of Patriotism universal 237 

Our Pacifists superabundantly endowed with it ... . 237 
Pacifism and Internationalism perversions of the instinct of 

Patriotism 238 

Patriotism and fire insurance 239 

Renewed fruitless appeal to Minister of Education . . . 240 
Elementary drilling of our boys the safest and cheapest way 

to reauce our armaments 241 

Also the best physical and moral training for the boys them- 
selves 242 

A glance at our National Debt and at the little cherub who 

sits up aloft 244 

CHAPTER VI 
{November — December 1918 — January 1919) 

Renewed Examination of Poptilab Education and its 

Effects: 
Daring suggestion to educate our carpenters to make tables 

and chairs 247 

Non-readers and non-regarders 248 

The Hebrew Scriptures 249 

Useful maxims from them for national guidance .... 249 

These ancient rules of conduct! 251 

Appeal to great permanent rules and principles .... 251 
Have we got hold of sure rules and principles in Popular 

Education? 252 

Look at the facts! 262 

Double your Education rates! Treble them! Ignorance is 

the foe 253 



Table of Contents xix 

PAOB 

The two most costly and mischievous kinds of ignorance . 253 
Proposal to levy supplementary Education rate for study of 

the great commandments 254 

A matter for the parsons 255 

England without a living credible reUgion 255 

Manual labourers in angry revolt against their daily work . 256 

Professor Wallace on mistaken education of manual labourers 258 

These workers of England ! 260 

Forbidden to learn the things they will be mainly concerned 

to do 260 

The yoimg blacksmith who was educated to play the flute . 261 

Educational experts and Jane Austen's vicar .... 263 

How Nature establishes a soimd and vigorous race . . . 264 

Our care of child life 265 

We shall have to call in the biologist 265 

Breeding the unfit 266 

More important to get ourselves rightly bom than rightly 

educated 267 

Appeal to the biologist for guidance towards wise legislation 267 

Better to fit manual labour to its job than to force it to its job 267 
Popular Education responsible for widely spread vulgarity 

and shoddiness 268 

Our popular songs 270 

The ornament of our common life 271 

Our whole system of Popular education needs to be built 

on a new basis 272 

Questions we now ask ourselves in educating our masses . 272 

Questions we should ask ourselves 273 

Broad division line between manual labour and brain labour 273 
Necessary to estimate amount of each and educate our 

masses in proportion 275 

Coal and iron district peopled exclusively by artists, scholars, 

and thinkers 278 

The gas workers of Odessa 280 

School-teachers and rag-pickers 281 

Their rates of pay compared 281 

An unsound social structure 283 

Universal superficial mis-education the cause of universal 

revolt 285 

Nature has already sorted out our scholars for us , . , 288 

Let us educate them accordingly 288 

A milHon houses needed for working classes 290 

Why not educate our children towards building them? . . 290 

How to avoid a social and economic deluge 293 

Rate of wages of secondary importance 294 

Social instability again traced to absence of living credible 

religion and active working faith 295 



XX Table of Contents 

Motto for a new Education Act 206 

Nature about to bring in a stringent Uneducation Act of 

her own 397 

CHAPTER VII 
(January 1910) 

Summing up on Popular Education in our Theatebs: 

A matter of national concern 298 

A niis-cducatcd public 300 

Our masses badly trained, alike for useful productive work 

and for wise amusement 301 

Vulgarization of our national life by indiscriminate super- 
ficial Education 302 

A correct " attitude of mind " towards " the facts of life " . 302 

A correct attitude of body even more desirable .... 303 

"Attitude of mind" of our popular audiences .... 304 
Pressing invitation to Minister of Education to become a 

playgoer 304 

" Who has been mis-educating these dear good folk? " . . 305 

SuMMiNQ UP on tub League of Nations: 

Millennium again postponed 305 

Aunt Julia 30G 

Grand allegorical design to commemorate the founding of 

the l^eague 307 

The arch on which rests the peace of the world .... 307 

T^B Last Appeal: 

All these questions are one question 309 

The innumerable cloud of witnesses oil 

Our two mightiest voices speak to us 311 

Choose, Englondl 313 



INTRODUCTORY LETTER 

To the Right Hon. Herbert A. L. Fishee, 
President of the Board of Education, 

{March 1918) 

Dear Mr. Fisher, 

Kow that your Education Bill has taken its main 
outlines and permanent general form, and is safe from 
any serious injury or wide amendment, may I, with- 
out impertinence, set down some insurgent thoughts 
upon the subject, which for a long time past have been 
collecting themselves in my mind, and which the re- 
morseless events and emergencies of these last few years 
drive to seek utterance ? I can scarcely hope tliat they 
will be of any present service to the cause of Education, 
for they run away in many different directions from the 
main stream of national opinion. This, in itself, offers 
some presumption that they are more or less ill adapted 
to prevailing conditions. And it is rather with a forlorn 
and fugitive desire to help you in moulding your next 
Education Bill, than with the view of inducing you to 
change some features of the present one, that I beg leave 
to lay these thoughts before you. They have the merit, 
or defect, of being written by one who is wholly removed 
from party politics, and is therefore free to be con- 
cerned only for what he conceives to be the welfare of 
the State. 

May I be allowed then to wander round this most 
thorny and difficult subject of Popular Education, in 
searching but discursive, variable, and often perhaps 

zxi 



xxii Introductory Letter 

illogical and contradictory thought, and to take you 
with me so far as you have patience and inclination to 
go? It is necessary that our thoughts upon any subject 
should at first be variable, tentative, and contradictory, 
before they can clarify and settle into steadfast and 
assured conviction. 

It is with no wish to hamper or obstruct you in your 
arduous and immensely complicated task, that I bring 
before you these unwelcome facts and inconvenient 
comments and suggestions. But perhaps they may serve 
to put before you certain aspects of the question which 
have hitherto lain somewhat outside the views and aims 
of experts in Education, but which seem to call for 
serious consideration. In any case I offer you as my 
justification for addressing this letter to you personally, 
the comforting reminder that you are not obliged to 
read it. And this easy way of escape from my im- 
portunities lies equally open to all who may wish to 
ignore them. 

When your Education Bill was in its earliest stages 
in the House of Commons, I was lunching with a lady 
who, in the dearth of servants, had taken as domestic 
helps the wife and children of a gardener, absent at the 
war. A little before hmch, the elder girl of fourteen 
came in from school, much worried with a paper of ques- 
tions that had been set her. "Tell me what you know 
about Cicero," was one of the demands upon her; and 
the other questions were of a lofty and more or less ab- 
stract kind, all equally remote from the daily duties 
which the girl would have to perform for the whole of 
her life. The child was about the average of her class 
in physique and intelligence, certainly not in any 
marked degree below the average. She was genuinely 
anxious to scrape up as much acquaintance with Cicero 



Introductory Letter xxiii 

as would tide her over any difficulties at school. To 
this end she sought assistance from her mother, who 
was cooking the lunch. How far this sudden call upon 
her classical acquirements deranged the good gardener's 
wife, I cannot say, but we certainly had a very tough 
and leathery omelette. A short conversation that I 
had with the girl after lunch, was enough to show very 
clearly that whatever precarious items of information 
about Cicero she could temporarily pack into her mind, 
would probably wander out of it into vacuity within a 
fortnight. 

Further, granting that she could retain them, she 
could not, I am persuaded, put them into relation with 
her general conception of Roman history and literature, 
or with her stock of other knowledge, or with whatever 
coherent theory she may form of human life. That 
is to say, whatever scattered facts she may have been 
able to glean about Cicero, will not be of the least use to 
her, or to any living being, in the tremendous struggle 
which we shall be called upon to endure in the coming 
generation. They will not, I am convinced, lead her to 
a further knowledge of Cicero, so that she may be able 
to guide her friendships by Cicero's essay on Friend- 
ship, or to solace her declining years by his essay on 
Old Age. I question if at any time during her life 
she will be able to comprehend three pages of the trans- 
lations of either of these essays. If any facts about 
Cicero remain in her memory, which is highly im- 
probable, they will remain as dead facts, and hindrances 
to whatever useful mental activities she may possess. 
Meantime, the omelette was spoilt. 

Sir, this poor flustered child is the type of hundreds 
of thousands of her class whom we are educating, not 
in knowledge that will be useful to them, and helpful 



xxiv Introductory Letter 

to us all J not iu things that are congenial to their nat- 
ural ability; not in the very fine arts that malce for 
domestic welfare nud happiness, hut in smatterings of 
recondite matters that can have no bearings on tlieir ac- 
tual life, and that, so far as they are remembered at all, 
tend only to a state of mental bewilderment. 

I gladly acknowledge that here and there among our 
working classes are to be foimd girls of fourteen who 
can appreciate Cicero, and who should be taught all 
tliat they can learn about him, so that tlio}^ can fitly 
place him in an ordered scheme of general knowledge. 
And these girls are quite likely to be those who will 
malve the best omelettes. Oppressed as I am with tax- 
ation, I am still willing to pay for them to be taught 
all about Cicero, and all about making omelettes. But 
these girls are one iu a thousand, and most likely they 
will themselves take eager care of nine-tenths of their 
higher education. I am not willing to pay for the 
masses of our working classes to be taught a heap of 
what is to them quite mentally indigestible matter, 
which in the vast majority of cases will be thrown out 
of their minds almost before it is learned, and which, 
so far as any result is obtained from it, wastes and mis- 
directs their mental energy, and is neither useful nor 
pleasurable to them, nor profitable to the State. 

I shall be told that I am talking old-fashioned ex- 
ploded nonsense. Let me try to justify myself. 

First, let me say tliat I cordially accept, and am ready 
to subscribe, in both senses, to the general rule that 
every child in the kingdom shall be educated iu such 
a way that whatever physical and mciifal powers he 
possesses shall be developed to the extent, iind in the 
direction, that shall make him most useful to the State. 
Here I suppose I am in agreement with you. Let me 



Introductory Letter xxv 

claim that this general rule quite excludes the immense 
majority of children from being educated by the State 
in such a way as will fully develop all their mental pow- 
ers, or in most cases a third part of their mental pow- 
ers ; or in such a way as will develop these mental pow- 
ers to the individual interest and personal advancement 
of the child himself, either intellectually, or socially, 
or materially. Some potential Miltons must remain 
mute and inglorious. Some potential Masters of Trin- 
ity, who happen to bo bom in a carboniferous region, 
must, willy nilly, forgo academic distinction and spend 
their time and strength in digging coal. There must 
always be a vast waste of potential mental energy, aa 
of everything else in Nature. 

There is, for instance, an enonnous waste of sun- 
power, but we do not utilize it when we laboriously 
try to extract sunshine from cucumbers. We do not 
utilize the waste mental abilities of our masses by in- 
discriminately forcing all of them to learn facts about 
Cicero, and other abstract matters which will be quite 
useless to them in after life, and whose acquirement 
consumes a certain amount of energy that might be 
profitably given to the service of the State. In that 
way we may make one fairly accomplished scholar and 
perhaps fifty prigs in a thousand, while all the others 
will go their own way and joyfully forget all about 
Cicero in the study of the latest sixpenny love story, 
or the latest tip about a football match. 

I am wi'iting here in the interests of the State, and 
with the object of turning out citizens useful to the 
State ; and I am concerned to show, what is apparently 
overlooked by many of our experts, that in Education, 
as in most other matters, the interests of the individual 
child are often, and in many ways, opposed to the in- 



xxvi Introductoiy Letter 

teresta of the State. Wo are sending our boys out to 
France to be maimed and killed. It is not at all in 
their individual interest to go, but it is for tlie welfare 
of the State. And if wo are prepared to bid our chil- 
dren make tliis supreme sacrifice for the State, so in 
the matter of Education wo must not give all our chil- 
dren, or even tho majority of our children, that educa- 
tion which we would desire to give them in their own 
individual interest, and which would most thoroughly 
develop all their mental powers, but just that education 
which will make them most useful sen^ants of the State. 
It is not, I affirm, in tho interests of the State to have 
every child highly educated except in those matters 
and aptitudes that will enable him best to fulfil his 
duties to the State. This perhaps may sound like a 
truism, but it is practically denied in the working and 
in the main tendencies of our present system of Pop- 
ular Education. 

J^obody will deny that Popular Education has con- 
ferred immense benefits and advantages not only upon 
the working classes, but indirectly upon all classes of 
Englishmen. It may be cheerfully acknowledged that 
in many ways it has transformed our lives for the bet- 
ter. Popular Education has given us much. Has it 
given us all, or most of the good things that we reason- 
ably hoped from it? What has our present system 
taken away from us? Has it not to a gi*eat and in- 
creasing extent taken away from us some of the most 
precious things of all? Has it not foisted upon U3 
many undesirable and some pernicious things? Has 
it not tended to foster some habits and ways of thought 
that, unless they are checked, may ultimately prove de- 
structive to us? 

I suppose I shall be thought to be crazy if I question 



Introductory Letter xxvii 

that there is an immense balance to the good on account 
of Popular Education, an overwhelming credit, and a 
few mere inconsiderable items of debit. 

Who can strike the balance? It all depends upon 
what qualities of human nature we most highly esteem, 
what virtues in a people are ultimately found to be most 
necessary to their welfare and indeed to their existence, 
what relative values we place on these qualities and 
virtues. Before the balance can be struck, it will have 
to be decided what are our present main national aims, 
and how far we are directing our national energies in 
their pursuit. Some of us would say that underneath 
these questions lie the more fundamental questions as 
to what is the true welfare of the State, and how far 
our present national aims are directed to attain it. 
This goes down to bedrock. But the times are such 
that we must find sure foundations or perish. And 
until we know what kind of welfare we desire for 
our State, and until we are substantially united in our 
national aims to attain it, all our legislation must be 
tentative, and will probably be blundering and mis- 
chievous. i^Tow in this great matter of Education, it 
seems to me that educational experts have not sufficient- 
ly grasped this cardinal fact, that the immediate in- 
terests of the individual child are in the majority of 
cases opposed in many ways to the interests of the 
State; that as in the other warfare, many children 
must necessarily be sacrificed so far as their higher 
education is concerned; that they cannot be edu- 
cated to their utmost mental capacity, or to anything 
like their utmost mental capacity, without wasting en- 
ergies that will be more and more urgently demanded 
by the State for more pressing and more useful employ- 
ment. I say this law is neglected by educational ex- 



xxviii Introductory Letter 

perts; indeed many of them do not suspect its exis- 
tence. Yet it is surely operative, as will be seen before 
many generations have passed. I will not dwell here 
upon the very evident fact, that the majority of our 
people are not naturally capable of receiving or assimi- 
lating an education that requires them to take more 
than three steps in abstract thought. 

Let us leave the theoretical side of the question and 
glance at the actual working of Popular Education. 

Your Bill will not essentially change our present sys- 
tem. It widens and enlarges it What type of English 
working man has been evolved and standardized by 
Popular Education, so far as we can separate its ef- 
fects from all the other influences and tendencies of 
our civilization that have also helped to mould him? 
How far has our system of education really educated 
him in the things that it most concerns him to know 
and to live by, and most concerns the nation that he 
should know and practise ? 

I will take the two tests that seem to me the most 
trustworthy — the test of his work, and the yet surer 
test of his play. But I am willing that any other tests 
shall be applied, provided that they ensure that the 
effects of Popular Education can be traced, without 
confusing them witJbi the effects of other agencies. First 
there is the test of work. 



PATRIOTISM 
AND POPULAR EDUCATION 



PATRIOTISM AND 
POPULAR EDUCATION 



CHAPTER I 

{March — April 1918) 

My old Carpenter — "Artistic, sixpence three farthings" — A well 
educated working man — Dame Nature a harsher "exploiter" than 
the capitalist — Working men cheat their* brother working men — 
Not a question of Capital and Labour, but of honesty or dishon- 
esty — A call for the Parsons — Proposal to ship some of them to 
Kikuyu — Robinson Crusoe and Friday's neglected education — 
Deplorable ignorance of Friday of matters that did not concern 
him — Consequent economic stability of the island — Friday's ca- 
pacity for abstract thought — General education the enemy of 
good craftsmanship — Monstrous and ridiculous proposal to drill 
our boys for the future defence of their country — Equally mon- 
strous and ridiculous proposal to teach our girls what will b« 
useful to them as wives and mothers — Enlargement of dictum 
of the Minister of Education concerning general education. 

POPULAK Education lias now been in force for 
nearly fifty years. I have in my mind a fairly 
typical working man of tlie better class of fifty years 
ago. He was a carpenter in a small provincial town. 
He had received a very limited education, I suppose at 
a ISTational School of those days, which I daresay he 
left at about the age of twelve. He was probably then 
apprenticed to his trade. He must have learned it 
thoroughly in all its branches; for when I knew him 

1 



2 Patriotism and 

in his late middle age, lie could and did make with 
his own hands, the whole of a large useful cabinet for 
a middle-class sitting room. That cabinet, by its sound 
workmanship, its sensible shape, its fitness and utility, 
would utterly shame and condemn anything that a mid- 
dle-class family could buy at furnishing shops in 1914, 
at three or four times its price. You cannot get as good 
workmanship to-day in its class. He was equally adept 
and honest and thorough in whatever job he was called 
in to do. 

After fifty years of Popular Education, it is almost 
impossible for a lower or middle-class family to get a 
drawer that will slide, or a window-sash that will work 
easily, or a door that will close properly. The carpen- 
try work in our cheap modern houses and apartments 
is for the most part abominably bad, inconvenient, 
treacherous, and pei-ishable. The design and shape of 
most of our modern fui-niture justifies the current slang 
epithet, "appalling." In all the decoration of our lower 
and middle-class homes, the more taste we pretend to, 
the less taste we have. You may have noticed the un- 
conscious self-deceit and the unblushing impudence of 
those many ai'ticles of use and decoration which are 
ticketed in shop windows, "Artistic, sixpence three 
farthings." They loudly proclaim that the people who 
design them, the people who make them, the people 
who sell them, and the people who use them, must have 
had a general education that has vitiated their taste, 
and deprived them of their apprehension of beauty. 
The daily use of the word "artistic" is a terrible con- 
demnation of our present system of Popular Education. 
It is one of the many words upon whose use a very 
heavy tax should be laid for the benefit of our impov- 
erished exchequer. 



Popular Education 3 

I do not say that the state of things I have noted is 
entirely the effect of Popular Education, I do say that 
it is very palpably the correlative of Popular Educa- 
tion; and that its continuance and apparent growth is 
a grave reproach, if not a severe condemnation of our 
present system. 

To return to my carpenter. He read very little, 
scarcely anything, except the local weekly paper on 
Saturday, and on other days, and chiefly on Sundays, 
the Bible and the "Pilgrim's Progress." Thus he had 
a very close acquaintance with some of the best lit- 
erature, and was quite ignorant of trash. This was 
evident in his daily talk, for he often coined a sentence 
not wholly unworthy to appear in either of those books. 
He worked very hard, often twelve or fourteen hours 
a day, and he gave his light evenings to his garden. 
And being temperate and fully occupied with his work, 
he lived to a good old age. I cannot remember whether 
he had any political opinions. 

I will allow that my carpenter was somewhat above 
the average, but not so much as to make it unfair to 
present him as a type of his class ; for his match could 
readily be found in most English towns of that day, and 
of the previous three hundred years. In all that counts 
as a sound education, that is, an education which fits a 
man to serve the interests of the State in his particular 
calling, while affording him a reasonably happy, con- 
tented, and healthy life — in these essentials my car- 
penter was a better educated man than the correspond- 
ing carpenter of to-day. 

Further than this, though his general outlook on life 
was very narrow and cramped; though he was child- 
ishly ignorant and prejudiced and superstitious on many 
important subjects, yet, on the whole, he lived a richer. 



4 Patriotism and 

fuller, more admirable, more enviable life than the 
average carpenter of to-day. But the chief point for 
the interests of the State, is that he was a thoroughly 
good carpenter of a numerous, widely-spread class. 
Such a carpenter can scarcely be found in all England 
to-day. 

'Now carpentry is perhaps of all occupations the 
most universal and the most necessary in all ages, and 
all lands. It is the one that is most necessary to the 
comfort of our homes. I am at present enduring great 
discomfort from the radical dishonesty of much of the 
woodwork and fittings in my house, which is quite 
modern. 

I will beg you, sir, to place these facts in due rela- 
tion to our system of Popular Education, and to tell 
me why it is, that while before its advent it was almost 
impossible to get a piece of bad carpentry in lower and 
middle-class homes, it is now almost impossible to get a 
piece of good carpentry ? 

I shall be told that it is due to the capitalist. !N"o- 
body hates many of the forms and aspects of our 
present-day commercialism more than I do, or more 
despises the base truckers who fatten upon it. But all 
attempts to get rid of the capitalist have ended in far- 
cical or tragical failure; whether made in quite small 
communities, or on a large national scale, as lately 
in Russia. And if we make the State our sole capi- 
talist, as some desire, we shall find it a more harsh, 
eruel, capricious, and grinding "exploiter" than any 
private master. We shall also find it a most incapable, 
bungling, and dishonest employer, who, having muddled 
all our concerns and bewildered and stultified itself, will 
slip out of the mess by dissolving itself, leaving us in 
universal poverty and despair, to be "exploited" by 



Popular Education 5 

grim old Dame Nature, the harshest and cruellest "ex- 
ploiter" and employer of all. For she knows no pity 
and allows no argument. She will enter into no con- 
ference or ai'bitration. She makes her own award, 
and straightway enforces it, "Work or Starve." Some- 
times it is "Work and starve." Sometimes it is briefly 
"Starve." And there is no appeal. Compared with 
her bleak and iron governance, the worst tyranny of 
our present employers and "exploiters" is as mothers' 
mercies and as fathers' blessings. Witness what is hap- 
pening in Russia to-day where famine, black typhus, 
misery, desolation, madness, murder, and anarchy 
shriek out to us that the corrupt and abominable despot- 
ism of the Czar was a mild and beneficent rule com- 
pared with the despotism of whimsies and fallacies and 
sophistries. 

ISTo, sir, it is not the capitalist. The capitalist does 
not make the rickety chairs, the drawers that will not 
slide, and all the other trumpery inconveniences that 
make our working-class homes so miserable and unin- 
habitable. It is something to his profit to get them 
made well, though I daresay he cares little for this. I 
am not seeking to defend the capitalist. I have not 
much liking for him. And I have a real fondness for 
working men, and so much sympathy that I would like 
to be counted one of them. And I think I am so en- 
titled, for when I was twelve and a half years old, 
that is,, three months after I had finally left school, I 
was working sixteen hours a day. I hope this will 
show that I have no class bias. 

To return. The capitalist does not maike all the vil- 
lainous paraphernalia of our working-class homes. 
These things are made by the working classes themselves, 
for themselves. And as by far the greater part of such 



6 Patriotism and 

things are manufactured for the use of the working 
classes, it follows that it is mainly the working classes 
who are cheated when thej are made badlj. The work- 
ing man thinks he is making them for an employer, 
who is "exploiting" him and whom he has been taught 
to regard as his deadly enemy. He is really making 
them mainly for his brother working man, whom he 
is cheating when he does this necessary home work 
badly. 

N'o capitalist could have driven my old carpenter to 
make his bits of home furniture badly. He could not 
do his work badly, because in the first place he had so 
thoroughly and soundly learned his trade, that good 
solid work was a habit that had become his second na- 
ture. A sound knowledge of his craft was his "higher" 
education. And as he regularly worked about twelve 
hours a day, he had plenty of leisure in those twelve 
hours to do his work well. He needed not to scamp it. 
His mind and energies were chiefly employed upon his 
work. He put his heart and brain into it, and thus 
unconsciously served the best interests of the State. 
He was thoroughly educated in what it chiefly con- 
cerned him to know for his own good, and for the good 
of the State. He had also been taught, even before 
his school days, that "The fear of the Lord is the be- 
ginning of knowledge." ^ His interpretation of this and 
kindred texts compelled him to do his work well, for 
it made him afraid to do it badly. He had a deep and 
abiding sense of his duty to his employers, and he did 
not look upon them as his natural and mortal enemies. 
Therefore, when he made something for a working- 
class home, he made it well, and his brother working 
man was benefited. 

* Proverbs, chap, i, verse 7. 



Popular Education 7 

What has all this to do with Popular Education ? It 
is the very warp and essence of it ! 

Working men make for each other all their own ar- 
ticles of every-day use, all the apparel of their homes. 
If these things are not made well, the fault must rest 
either upon themselves in not giving sufficient time, 
or skill, or thought, or energy to this primary business 
of life; or upon a system of Popular Education that 
must be radically vicious or defective because it does 
not teach them the first great lesson of all education — 
to do their particular work in the world honestl;y, and 
with all their might. In other words, in not teaching 
them that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of 
knowledge — putting a wide and practical interpre- 
tation on this text. When this first great lesson is left 
untaught, much of what is curiously called "higher edu- 
cation" is likely to be useless and mischievous to them- 
selves, and ultimately dangerous to the State. 

It is not a question of capital and labour. It is a 
question of honesty or dishonesty of workmanship in 
each particular calling. When, as in the carpentry 
of our homes, the general workmanship is slack, un- 
skilled, and perishable, it is the working classes who 
suffer first and suffer most, and have to bear the chief 
brunt of the hardships. For they are by far the most 
numerous class, and are inevitably the nearest and most 
accessible to any and every assault of national misfor- 
tune or error. When the carpentry of our homes is 
honest, thorough, skilled, and durable, it is the working 
classes who are mainly and most widely benefited. For 
the additional comfort and convenience means so much 
more to them than to the well-to-do, and this additional 
comfort and convenience is distributed over the largest 
area, l^o encroachments and tyranny of the capitalist 



8 Patriotism and 

can destroy what comforts are to be got from good and 
serviceable borne carpentry, if only the carpenters them- 
selves are doing this work in sufficient quantity for 
their brother working men. And no dethronement of 
the capitalist and the middleman, even to the level of 
compelling them to make bad and rickety furniture 
with their own hands, will in the least add to the com- 
fort and convenience of the working-class home, if the 
carpenters do not study to make the work they do for 
their comrades as honest and durable as they can. 

Let us take care that in our just anger against the 
middleman and tlie ''exploiter," we do not forget to 
kindle to a fiercer heat, a juster anger against ourselves 
for all the sloppy, perfunctory, dishonest, careless, use- 
less, harmful work we are doing in the world. Let us 
take care that while we are mainly busy in making a 
clean sweep of the capitalist and the exploiter, that iron, 
grim, implacable old Dame isn't preparing to make a 
clean sweep of us. A very short taste of her "exploit- 
ing" will make us cry out for somebody to "exploit" 
us out of OUT misery. We may even be sorry that we 
didn't put up with our present "exploiters," bad and 
corrupt as many of them are. 

Sir, for many centuries to come, perhaps while time 
endures, the great majority of mankind will necessarily 
have to be "exploited" in all the main affairs of life 
by somebody or the other. In Russia we may notice 
that it is the Germans who have temporarily taken over 
this necessary and fundamental business. What a 
strange denouement if Nature's answer to the whimsies 
of the Pacifists should be establishment of a line of 
military exploiters! She is quite capable of a gigantic 
hoax of this kind — witness the innumerable millions 
whom she has led to their destruction, dancing after 



Popular Education 9 

some painted tTack-o-Lantem of political or spiritual 
delusion. She is always playing these hideous tricks 
on people who nurse whimsies ; and her darling victim 
is not the dull, stupid man, but the fervent Impossi- 
blist, and the cheap-jack purveyor of gorgeous dreams 
to the multitude. 

The first duty of Popular Education is to teach that 
all careless, scamped, and dishonest work is a crime 
against the State. Till working-men learn this hard 
lesson, no adjustments of capital and labour, no mas- 
sacre of middle men and exploiters, will better their lot ; 
and no classical or mathematical attainments will bo 
other than foolish and wasteful furbelows — a spangled 
cloak thrown over a body eaten by cancer. 

Here I think I hear somebody calling out loudly for 
the parsons. I am sure that many of them have done 
hard and fruitful and unselfish service in the cause of 
Popular Education. But have not the majority of 
them been far more concerned to teach their indi- 
vidual whimsies, than the plain commandments by 
which men live ? Have they not insisted that these va- 
ried, shifting, inconsistent, contradictory, incomprehen- 
sible whimsies shall be made the foundation of Popular 
Education, and that unless these whimsies are bound 
up in assorted sets with the multiplication table, there 
shall be no multiplication table at all? Have not the 
parsons been the great hinderers and obstructors of 
Popular Education ? And might it not be wise in the 
interests of Popular Education and of religion, as soon 
as sufficient tonnage is available, to ship all the parsons 
who cannot agree amongst themselves to Kikuyu, their 
happy hunting-ground, their favourite cockpit, their 
holiday resort, their Mecca, their spiritual home, and 
their unhonoured grave ? 



10 Patriotism and 

Nevertlieless, we may be grateful to the many of 
them who have taught, even with much admixture of 
whimsy, the first great lesson of Popular Education, 
that honest, careful, useful, productive work for our 
fellows, each in our allotted sphere, is the first and 
main duty of us all to the State. Whatever else is 
taught is secondary, and comparatively unimportant. 
For it is clear that if this lesson is thoroughly learned, 
and if this duty is thoroughly done, a condition of in- 
ternal general well-being must necessarily follow. It is 
also clear that the allotted sphere of the vast majority 
of us, must be one that requires of us constant, hard, 
dirty labour that will necessarily absorb the greater part 
of our physical energy, and will not leave us a large 
surplus of mental energy to acquire facts about Cicero, 
or an unlimited leisure to play golf and attend football 
matches. 

I am quite willing to pay for other people's chil- 
dren to be taught all about Cicero, and therein 
to excel me; and this with money that I have 
earned, and badly need to make provision for my 
own children, in whose favour I am perhaps a little pre- 
judiced — I say I am quite willing that my cash shall 
be thus disbursed, if only it can be proved that such 
teaching helps the cooking of the communal omelette, 
and the easy working of the domestic apparatus, and is 
on the whole the best way of spending my money for 
the welfare of the State. But I have my doubts. 

I will go further and own myself willing to try my 
hand at cooking the omelette myself, while paying for 
our future servants to be taught all about Cicero — if 
only it can be proved that such a direction of our sev- 
eral energies, is on the whole the best that can be de- 



Popular Education 11 

vised for the welfare of the State. But I have my 
doubts. 

For myself, Cicero has been something of an edu- 
cational luxury. I have sparingly indulged in him. 
Still he had many good qualities, and I remember that 
on one occasion he declared that he had saved the State. 
If a knowledge of Cicero's life and writings will, in 
some occult way, help our domestic servants and our 
carpenters to save the State, I am enthusiastically in 
favour of letting them know all about him as quickly 
as possible. But I have my doubts. 

I am quite sure that it cannot be either to their ovm 
advantage, or for the welfare of the State, that our 
domestic servants and carpenters shall be taught a few 
facts about Cicero, and smatterings of science, mathe- 
matics, and literature, while the cookery and carpen- 
try in working-class homes remain in their present mis- 
erable state. 

I cordially give a general assent to your dictum that 
"no country in the long run suffers an economic injury 
from an improvement in the general education of its 
population." But this is a vague and abstract propo- 
sition, whose successful working lies in its correct ap- 
plication to the pressing necessities of the population, 
to their varied mental and physical capacities, and to 
their individual duties to the State. It is governed 
and qualified in a hundred ways that educational ex- 
perts never seem to suspect. 

For instance, Friday's education had been deplor- 
ably neglected. It was certainly prudent of Bobinsoi^ 
Crusoe to educate him out of cannibalism and into 
Christianity. But Friday's general education seems to 
have been untimely cut short at this very elementary 



12 Patriotism and 

stage. He knew as little about Cicero as my school- 
girl of fourteen. Any facts about Cicero that Robin- 
son Crusoe may have been able to impart, would prob- 
ably have tended in some small measure to quicken 
Friday's mental powers, and to make him a more in- 
telligent companion. Yet I question whether Robin- 
son Crusoe would have been wise to spend much time 
on Friday's education in matters relating to Cicero. 
A few scattered facts would certainly have been of no 
possible use to Friday. While if he had made any 
approach to scholarship in this and kindred subjects, 
the cuisine and household carpentry of the island would 
have suffered most disastrously. 

Robinson Crusoe could have given to Friday a body 
of collated information about Cicero, only at the cost 
to himself of much labour and valuable time. Friday 
could have received such a body of information about 
Cicero only at the cost of much labour and valuable 
time. It is evident that if the pair of them had given 
any considerable amount of labour and time to Cicero, 
the State would have tottered. On Robinson Crusoe's 
island, the principle you have laid down would have 
been terribly limited in its application by the prevail- 
ing conditions and circumstances. 

Your dictum is that ''no country in the long run 
suffers an economic injury from an improvement in 
the general education of its population." By general 
education I understand you to mean, knowledge and 
learning that are not directly concerned with the daily 
occupation of the individual, or with his duty to the 
State ; knowledge and learning which are indeed largely 
apart from, and have no traceable connection with the 
occupation of the individual, or with his duty to the 
State ; and which are given to him with a view to raise 



Popular Education 13 

his general intellectual status, on the principle that is 
supposed to regulate the successful aspersion of a man's 
character bj slander, namely, that "if you throw mud 
enough, some of it is bound to stick." 

The application of your dictum to Robinson Crusoe's 
island seems to raise a few provoking questions, such as : 

(1) What amount of time and mental energy can 
Robinson Crusoe afford to spare for Friday's general 
education, that could not be better employed for the 
welfare of the two in some other way ? 

(2) What amount of time and energy can Friday 
afford to spare for the purpose of being generally edu- 
cated, that could not be better employed for the wel- 
fare of the two in some other way ? 

(3) Granting unreservedly that it is highly desir- 
able that Friday's intellectual status should be raised, 
and that all his mental powers should be fully devel- 
oped — so far as is compatible with the welfare of the 
State — how far is Friday capable of assimilating in- 
struction beyond that which relates to his daily work, 
and his duty to the State? What is Friday's natural 
capacity for abstract thought ? For it is upon the de- 
gree of natural capacity for abstract thought, that near- 
ly all the worth and profit of what you call general 
education depends. 

(4) Might not the island suffer a very grave economic 
injury, to the infinite discredit of our theory, if Fri- 
day's general education were carried outside the limits 
I have indicated — if, for instance, Robinson Crusoe 
in a frenzy of educational zeal were to insist that Fri- 
day, against his own inclination and natural capacity, 
should learn a number of irrelevant facts about Cicero, 
and other remote matters ? 

It may be urged that our conditions in England do 



14 Patriotism and 

not offer any parallel to the conditions prevailing on 
Robinson Crusoe's island. Sir, for a long age to come, 
this island of ours, like Robinson Crusoe's, will be be- 
sieged by many iron and cruel necessities, and it will 
be of the first importance to us, as to him, so to regu- 
late and husband and apportion the relative expendi- 
ture of our physical and mental energies, as to obtain 
those results that will most certainly be profitable to 
the State as a whole, and will help to build it upon the 
surest foundations. And with this end in view, we 
should give the masses of our people, not that educa- 
tion which we might desire for them, which might most 
fully develop all their mental powers, and which might 
be most profitable to many of them individually, but 
just that amount, and that kind of very unequal, and 
very varied education which will best assure the safety 
of the State. One of our first concerns most intimately 
connected with Popular Education, indeed, a main part 
of it, should be to see that all the common work that is 
done for the common people, shall be done well and 
honestly, and by people who are not ashamed of doing 
it, who have not been educated away from it and are not 
diverted from its necessary accomplishment by other 
aims and pursuits. 

I gladly recognize that there are clauses in your bill 
which, if wisely administered, are likely to bring about 
some improvement in the direction I have indicated. 
But if it is claimed that, up to the present. Popular 
Education has tended towards this desirable result, I 
can only point to my old carpenter; to the condition 
of our household carpentry; to all the dreadful objects 
that desecrate our working- and middle-class and even 
upper-class homes; to the number of girls of fourteen 
who, to their gi-eat mental distraction, are being taught 



Popular Education 15 

irrelevant facts about Cicero before they have been 
taught plain cookery ; and to many other trades and call- 
ings necessary to the daily comfort of us all, in which the 
first great lesson of doing thoroughly and honestly one's 
own individual work in the world, has been left un- 
taught, and is constantly flouted; in which a terribly 
defective education in one's individual work, seems to 
be the correlative of an abortive attempt at "general" 
education ; in which natural aptitudes and abilities are 
left undeveloped, and carelessness, neglect, and sloven- 
liness prevail ; apparently because the physical or men- 
tal energies which should always first be given to one's 
immediate work in the world, have been drawn off to 
ineptitudes and wild digi'essions. 

I selected domestic carpentry because it is, as I said, 
a basic universal industry, which affects us all in our 
homes. I do not say that Popular Education is ac- 
countable for all the bad carpentry that is done. I do 
say that concurrently with the spread of Popular Edu- 
cation, carpenters generally have received an increas- 
ingly defective education in their own craft. It can- 
not be for the welfare of the State that carpenters 
should receive a "general" education that, while ad- 
mittedly it does not directly fit them for the exercise 
of their own calling, does yet permit, and perhaps in- 
directly encourage, a very casual, perfunctory knowl- 
edge, and a very slovenly practice of that calling. I am 
not grudging the carpenters their general or higher edu- 
cation. I am asking that it shall be made quite secon- 
dary and auxiliary to a thorough mastery of their own 
craft, and to as much diligent and absorbing practice of 
that craft as may be found necessary for the welfare 
of the State. 

Let us hope that the past and present disorder ig 



16 Patriotism and 

merely transitional — and transitory. And let me again 
cordially acknowledge that your Education Bill allows 
and encourages many improvements in these matters. 

But legislative enactments have a bad habit of not 
producing the effects for which they are designed, and 
of producing a number of indirect consequences, which 
are often obstructive to their main purpose. Much will 
depend upon the instruments who work it ; much more 
will depend upon its discriminate adaptation to the 
enormous mass of heterogeneous humanity which is to 
be subjected to its provisions. 

And here again we may have good hope. For the 
great bulk of the raw material of humanity to be 
brought under the new Education Act is sound, rough 
English stock. Every day brings us new proofs of the 
magnificent quality of its fibre, of its inexhaustible 
vigour and power of endurance. 

What may not be hoped from a nation that casually 
throws-off, as a bird moults a feather, heroes in mil- 
lions, Coeur-de-lions in hordes, and Sidneys in bat- 
talions ? What may not be hoped from such a nation, 
if only it is rightly trained, disciplined, and led ; every 
member being first taught, as the cardinal maxim of 
Popular Education, to do his own individual work 
honestly, and with all his might? 

Whatever Popular Education has taught our multi- 
tudes, however many and great the benefits it has be- 
stowed upon them, it surely has not up to the present 
taught them this first great lesson — witness the badly 
latched door that is intermittently slamming and clat- 
tering as I write this letter, and that leads me to ask 
whether some of the time and energy given to the 
general and higher education of our carpenters, might 



Popular Education 17 

not be more profitably spent upon special problems re- 
lating to the correct adjustment of door fastenings. 

There is no doubt that general education does raise 
the level of intelligence in the community, and in many 
ways add to their pleasures — if not wholly to their 
well-being. But are there not good grounds for think- 
ing that general education is often the enemy of that 
thorough special education in our individual work and 
duty which is the first necessity for the ultimate welfare 
of the State? Is not general education often the un- 
suspected enemy of good craftsmanship? It is cer- 
tainly the constant companion of much bad craftsman- 
ship. Does not "general" education often turn out a 
very poor scholar in place of an accomplished work- 
man? 

Our future necessities are such that we shall be far 
more in need of workmen than scholars. We have at 
our disposal only a limited amount of time, of physical 
energy, and of mental capacity. There is pressing need 
for the most rigorous economy in all of them. How can 
we so employ and apportion them as to get the best re- 
sults for the State ? 

Good carpenters are one of the primary necessities 
of any society. My old carpenter was produced by the 
simple process of thoroughly teaching him his trade 
and his duty to his neighbour, while he was very young, 
and then leaving him to get his higher education for 
himself. At the age of sixteen he was probably doing 
twelve hours a day useful work for the State. And he 
lived to a good old age. 

I do not propose to revert to a system of universal 
education on that basis. Any child with quite excep- 
tional mental ability should be given an opportunity 



18 Patriotism and 

to develop it in any way that may most be useful to the 
State, and even to develop it quite independently of 
any services he may he ahlc to render the State. Chil- 
dren of mental ability considerably above the average 
should also be selected, as no doubt they already are, 
for appropriate higher education. For unquestionably 
we shall be amply repaid for any expenditure we may 
lavish upon them. 

Of the remaining mass, that is the vast majority of 
children, the boys should be carefully divided into 
groups, according to their indicated capacity for dif- 
ferent kinds of physical employment, or for occupa- 
tions which do not call for the possession of much gen- 
eral or special knowledge, or for the exercise of any 
conspicuous mental powers. They should be given as 
much general education as would be almost certain to 
prove useful to them in their probable occupation. 
They should be given ample opportunities for higher 
education, if they chose to avail themselves of it. But 
higher education should not be forced upon any of them. 

All the boys should be thoroughly drilled and taught 
the first elements of soldiering, just enough to fit them 
for further training in the defence of their country, if 
that dread duty should be forced upon them. For by 
the neglect of this obvious part of Popular Education, 
England is at this hour pouring out her children's blood 
in torrents of sacrifice, which may prove to be more low- 
ering to the future vitality of our race than even the 
cruel and hideous factory system. 

If it is denied that some measure of such training 
will be required of us in future, I will only say that 
as the stern lesson of the Boer War was shouted at Eng- 
land's deaf ears in vain, so in vain has this latter and 
more terrible lesson been written for us in fire, and 



Popular Education 19 

tears, and blood of our dearest and bravest. In vain will 
you bring in measures of Popular Education. Educate 
us how jou will. Teacb us what you please. It mat- 
ters not. We cannot learn. 

For granted the monstrous impossibility that Ger- 
many should win this war, all the forces of civilization 
will still have to be raised against her in ceaseless in- 
surrection. And granted that we gain a decisive vic- 
tory, we and our present Allies shall find ourselves the 
arbiters and chief supervisors of the destinies of forty- 
six nations and communities, each with its own separate 
aims, ambitions, jealousies, and intrigues. Do we real- 
ize what that means ? 

Doubtless a long peace will ensue. After the Israe- 
lites had exhausted themselves and their neighbours in 
a bloody struggle "the land had rest for forty years." 
And up to the present, this seems to be human nature's 
limit of endurable abstinence from fighting. After a 
great war humanity always promises itself the millen- 
nium. But this time we say the millennium is assured, 
and is positively within sight. There it lies, smiling 
with endless peace and universal brotherhood and hap- 
piness, as soon as this war is ended. 

If a watertight League of Nations can be devised, 
and got to work, it will tend to promote immediate 
peace, and may possibly secure it for — shall we say 
forty years? Is Germany to come in? Do we know 
so little of human nature, as not to foresee that im- 
mediately there will be currents of separate interest, 
jealousies, intrigues, disruptions, probably leading to 
two main divided parties of nations; not necessarily 
leading to immediate war, but surely emphasizing the 
necessity of keeping some body of armed force ? Even 
if Germany were left out, the same conditions of af- 



20 Patriotism and 

fairs would be brought about in the course of time. In 
any case, England proposes to take a leading part in 
overlooking the dostiuics of forty-six nations and com- 
munities, all with their own separate and conflicting 
interests and ambitions; and, if necessary, to enforce 
them to keep the peace. How is that to be done with- 
out holding some considerable national armament al- 
ways in readiness ? 

Doubtless, too, the ascendancy of democracy will, on 
the whole, tend towards peace in the iuunediate future. 
Never again will a blasphemous and murderous cabotin 
have it in his power to nod and devastate the wide earth 
for his glory. But democracies will fight when they 
press upon each other and their interests clash. And 
this is likely to happen more and more frequently as 
the fertile spaces of the- world become more and more 
occcupicd. 

Again, democracies are apt to become inflamed 
against each other for no very wise reasons. It might 
be well for our working classes to note that a great 
number of the Russian proletariat seem to be inspired 
with a greater hatred of England than of Germany. 

Granted that a forty years' peace is probable, who can 
ensure it ? Almost every wide forecast made before and 
after the war was proved to be wrong; in most cases 
wildly, absurdly, and perniciously wrong. Who can 
foretell the disposition of power, tlie relations of na- 
tions towards each other, the shape of large events, the 
drift of the world's aft'airs in twenty j'cars' time from 
to-day? That is, at the time when the boys who are 
now to bo brought under the now Education Act, will 
be approaching the prime of early manhood, and will 
be most fit to render active service to the State. If 
anyone had told us twenty years ago, that of the boys 



Popular Education 21 

then flocking to our Board schools, every one would be 
conscripted in a last desperate necessity to offer his 
life for his country, we should have laughed at him 
and counted him a madman. We did laugh at those 
who warned us of our peril. 

If one could gain the fulfilment of a single wish, it 
would surely he that not one of the little urchins, who 
now and in the years to come, will troop into our schools, 
in quiet village streets where rooks are cawing, and in 
black, misty towns where factories and furnaces are 
roaring — that not one of these little urchins should 
be called upon to shed a drop of his blood, or to spill 
the blood of his fellow man ; that no occasion may arise 
for them to take up the stern duty which their elder 
brothers and fathers are now fulfilling with such match- 
less valour and fortitude. And indeed we have good 
reason to hope that the generation which will come un- 
der your Education Act, will have very small oppor- 
tunity for the active practice of wai\ 

But are we sure ? In the vast complexity of human 
affairs, no matter what victory we may gain, is it 
certain that the war may not leave large and secret 
legacies of irreconcilable dissension amongst the na- 
tions? Who can say what may be the situation and 
the necessities of England in twenty years — that again 
it may not be one of extreme peril ? It is to meet the 
exigencies and demands of 1940-1970 that you are 
educating our children to-day. After the war, all may 
look fair for a cloudless peace. But the thunder-clap 
so often bursts upon the nations from a clear sky. In 
any case, if England continues to hold a high and lead- 
ing position, she will find herself largely responsible 
for looking after forty-six nations and communities. 
And if her voice is to have any authority, there must 



22 Patriotism and 

be behind it the power to enforce her decisions. Hav- 
ing failed to insure our house, wouldn't it be well, now 
that it is almost burnt down, to insure our new house, 
even though there may no present prospect of another 
big fire? 

Therefore, even with the millennium dawning some- 
where just behind the hills, I advance the quite mon- 
strous proposal that all our boys should be thoroughly 
drilled, and taught the rudiments of soldiering — just 
enough to make it a fairly easy matter to fit them, if 
called upon, to take up arms quickly for the defence 
of their country. I urge that this be made a part of 
Popular Education. I am aware that I am asking for 
something ridiculous, outrageous, impossible. May the 
future prove it so ! 

I will say but one word as to the good results upon 
the health of the boys, and as to the value of the dis- 
cipline, and the habit of prompt obedience which would 
follow such training. Everyone knows the worth of an 
old sailor or an old soldier when work has to be done, 
or trust has to be reposed. Discipline and prompt obe- 
dience are the saviours of the nation in times of war, 
as we are finding out. They are of sovereign value 
in times of peace — if we would but learn it. To obtain 
them, to make them instinctive and operative amongst 
all our boys, it would be worth while to make some 
sacrifice of what is called higher education. 

With regard to our girls every one must gratefully 
acknowledge the splendid response that they have made 
to the national call upon them to take up new and 
difficult occupations. And it is probable that much of 
their alertness and varied ability may be placed to the 
credit of Popular Education. It is likely that the war 
will change in many ways the tastes and aims and out- 



Popular Education 23 

look of English girls, and will tend to develop new 
types. But until they can persuade N'ature to release 
them from the primal curse of Eve, the very large ma- 
jority of our girls must, for very safety and surety of 
the continuance of our race, accept the career of wife- 
hood and motherhood. And with this career inevitably 
marked out for them, they should all he thoroughly 
taught, as early as possible, the very fine arts of cook- 
ery, needlework, household management, the care of 
children, and other domestic accomplishments, together 
with a rough general knowledge of medicine, and the 
elements of physiology. All "general" education should 
he postponed until these are thoroughly learned as the 
foundation of a girl's education. 

Have not these necessary domestic accomplishments 
been more and more increasingly neglected during the 
years that Popular Education has been in force? Can 
you find in England to-day one girl who takes a delight 
in needlework, for fifty that could be found a few 
generations ago ? IsTeedlework is an art of the greatest 
use and also of the greatest ornament in the home. 
Many other indoor activities of kindred usefulness 
have been neglected, or altogether cast aside. 

I do not say there have not been many compensations. 
But when, taking only two instances out of a hundred, 
we find that such primary, necessary, and universal oc- 
cupations as household carpentry and needlework are 
in a state of neglect and decay, may we not be sure that 
there is something vicious in our system of Popular 
Education? Are we not confirmed in our suspicions 
that "general" education is often the enemy of that 
special and more important education which prepares 
and fits us to do our own individual work with all dili- 
gence, honesty, care, and thoroughness ? And, with the 



24 Patriotism and Education 

greatest respect, may I be allowed to enlarge your dic- 
tum on the matter, and make it read as follows: 

"No country in tlie long run suffers an economic in- 
jury from an improvement in the general education of 
its population — provided that the thorough training of 
its members in their individual work, and in their 
duty to the State, is first made secure." 

I leave the matter to your careful and searching 
judgment. 



CHAPTER II 

{April — May 1918) 

PopuLAE Education as it eeveals itself in oub 

Play 

The Higher Education of our masses at picture palaces and 
popular theatres — Its effect upon conduct and character — Grad- 
ual disappearance of Shakespeare from the British stage — Dull 
imbecility and licentiousness of our popular entertainments — 
Hideous exhibition by chorus girls — "Then you think I'm a 
whore" — Popular Education and the quality of our stage dia- 
logue — Slang and its functions — The orgy at the beginning of 
the war — The bishops get fidgetty — Rosy Twaddle, Holy Twad- 
dle, and Revue — Advice to bishops and clergymen as advertisers 
of plays — The wisdom of good tomfoolery — Actors and actresses, 
scullery maids, and dungcart cmptiers — Children on our stage — 
Discouragement of Sliakespeare by new Education Act — Virtual 
prohibition of five of his most popular plays — Our greatest ac- 
tresses educated on and by the stage — Early training in their 
craft necessary to make good actors and carpenters — French mid- 
dle classes sound and acute critics of plays — Children with a 
native talent for the stage — Child supernumeraries — Many of 
them better in the theatre than at home — Evils and abuses of 
the stage caused and multiplied by zealous ignorant bigots — Invi- 
tation to them to abstain from pecking and kicking at the the- 
atre — Connection between Popular Education and present de- 
gradation of our stage — Elizabethan audiences — Their lack of 
Popular Education and consequent ability to understand and en- 
joy Shakespeare — Shakespeare's real home the English theatre — 
Appeal to Minister of Education to aid in getting him back 
there. 

HAVn^G tested our present system of Popular 
Education by the quality of the workmanship it 
seems to produce, if not in all occupations, yet in some 

25 



26 Patriotism and 

of the most important, we may go on to apply to it 
another and even surer test. We may ask what kind 
of play and amusement does it encourage, or allow our 
multitudes to provide for themselves in their leisure 
hours ? 

There is no surer guide to the general level of edu- 
cation in a people, to their mental habits, tastes, and 
native capacities, their moral and intellectual fibre, 
than the form and quality of their popular amusements. 
Here, even more than in their daily work, they betray 
themselves. For their work is mainly forced upon 
them; their play they choose for themselves. You can 
nearly always sum up a man if you know what amuses 
him. 

While you are preparing to give our masses increas- 
ing doses of "general" and "higher" education, they 
are already giving themselves the main part of their 
"higher" education at picture palaces, music halls, and 
theatres, from cheap fiction, and from the daily and 
weekly papers. I mean that part of their education 
which does really occupy and exercise their minds, 
which inflames their emotions, shapes their ideals, il- 
lumines and colours their views of life, and guides 
their daily conduct. Every one of us, according to his 
tastes, inclinations, or natural mental capacity, gives 
to himself, or wins for himself, nearly all the education 
that is operative upon his life and conduct. And this 
secondary education at films and music halls, and in 
sixpenny novels, which is the education our people 
give themselves, when they spend their own money in- 
stead of the nation's — this secondary education is far 
more operative upon conduct, and is of far more im- 
portance in moulding their characters than the greater 



Popular Education 27 

part of wliat you are teaching them in your schools. 
It is more operative and more stimulating because it 
instantly and strongly stirs their emotions, and engages 
their sympathies. It satisfies their natural tastes, and 
is therefore digested and assimilated without effort. 
It is far more vivid and real and alive to the great mass 
of our population, than the courses that you are giving 
them in your continuation classes. 

It is obviously and necessarily on the level of their 
mental capacity. It is indeed the best and surest 
gauge of the level of their average mental capacity. 
And vrhile much of the "higher" education that you 
are giving to our populace wanders out of the minds of 
most of them, or is tucked away as mere dead fact, 
this secondary education which they are giving them- 
selves, and which they do really assimilate, builds up 
their permanent mental fabric, informs their character, 
and prompts their habits and conduct. And because 
this secondary education, which they provide at their 
own expense, is so potent and absorbing, so possessive 
of their thoughts — for this reason I am inclined to think 
that much of your secondary education is likely to be 
wasted upon the great mass of them. "When they have 
been well prepared for their primary duty of doing 
thoroughly their own individual work in the world — ' 
work which in the coming generation must necessarily 
be strenuous and exhausting to their general powers of 
body and mind — ^have the overwhelming majority of 
them a surplus of time and mental energy to indulge 
very largely in both kinds of secondary education — 
the secondary education which you are forcing upon 
them, and the secondary education which you may 
be sure they will amply provide for theonselvea in the 



28 Patriotism and 

form of amusement ? It is this latter kind of secondary 
education ■which, will have by far the greater influence 
upon their character and conduct. 

To build up the character of its citizens to a high 
level, to train them in right conduct, is surely the su- 
preme aim of Popular Education. 

The point I wish to make is, that with this supreme 
aim in view, it is far more important for the welfare 
of the State, and far more beneficent to the masses 
themselves, to give a wise direction and wise encourage- 
ment to the secondary education which the people pro- 
vide for themselves, than to enforce upon them all 
a secondary education which is largely foreign to their 
tastes, which in many cases draws off mental energies 
that could be better employed, which is often outside 
the possible sphere of their activities, and will be 
either quickly forgotten, or left to rust in them unused. 
Lest I should be mistaken, I repeat that I am most will- 
ing, nay, anxious, that opportunities for the highest 
education, and for winning the highest honours, should 
be given to every child — so far as this is consistent 
with the general welfare of the State. But I reaffirm 
the immense comparative importance of that secondary 
education which the people provide for themselves in 
the way of amusement, and as occupation for their 
leisure hours. 

I will merely glance at the inordinate amount of 
time which in years past our populace wasted in look- 
ing upon, and betting upon, games at football. Years 
before the war this habit was scourged in memorable 
words by the manliest of English writers and poets, 
whose stem reproof was denounced at the time. But 
his whip was badly needed on the slouching shoulders 
that have since been pulled to "Attention" by the angry 



Popular Education 29 

arrest of war, and should never again be allowed, to re- 
lax into sloth and lethargy. 

It is, however, when we survey the evening amuse- 
ments of the English people during the last ten or 
fifteen years, that we get a true measure of the appar- 
ent and transparent value of our present system of Pop- 
ular Education. 

May I impress upon your most serious attention, the 
startling fact that concurrently with the wider spread 
of Popular Education, Shakespeare has become more 
and more unpopular on the English stage; until now, 
for some seasons past, only occasional odd, scattered 
performances of his plays have been given in out-of-the- 
way places, for the most part by actors quite untrained 
in the delivery of verse. However laudable in itself 
it may be to give a few performances of Shakespeare 
in the Waterloo Road, it is in reality the bitterest 
comment on the general taste of London playgoers, and 
a glaring exposure of our national contempt for Shake- 
speare on the stage. When that is all we can offer, we 
merely publish and emphasize the poverty and insol-; 
vency of our Shakespearean drama. Our theatres both 
in London and the provinces have never been so crowded 
and so prosperous as since the outbreak of war. Yet 
since the earlier months, when a few productions of 
his war plays had short, unsuccessful runs, Shakespeare 
has been practically absent from our national stage. 

He has been absent from the English stage. But 
he has not been absent from the German stage. In the 
year before the war there were sixty-six companies 
playing Shakespeare in Germany, and in Berlin eight 
theatres put up twenty-five different Shakespearean 
productions; while 1,104 representations were given 
of "The Merchant of Venice" alone. Our English 



30 Patriotism and 

record for that year is too contemptible to set down. 
Our record since the war, compared with Germany's, 
would probably prove to be equally contemptible, equal- 
ly shameful to us, and equally dishonouring to Shake- 
speare. May not Germany well fling at us the taunt 
that "if music hall and cinematograph England" had 
been possessed with the spirit of Shakespeare, we should 
long ago have won the war ? 

Shakespeare is banished from the English stage. As 
Popular Education has become universally operative, 
Shakespeare has gradually disappeared, and is now 
making an inglorious, unobserved, and possibly final 
exit. 

Enter Popular Education. Exit Shakespeare from 
our theatres, unheeded and despised. That is an in- 
dictment of our present system of Popular Education, 
so severe in its implications, that no further evidence 
is necessary. It is conclusive in itself. 

Hay I dwell, with some insistence, upon the fact that 
your new Education Bill is introduced at the very mo- 
ment when the English populace, brought up under 
our present system, and taught and nourished thereby, 
has finally dismissed Shakespeare from being their chief 
popular educator and entertainer in his own legitimate 
class-room — the theatre ? Eor three hundred years he 
has gloriously filled that post, and he is contemptuous- 
ly dismissed as soon as Popular Education has had time 
to influence and inform the masses, and very pointedly, 
just as you bring in your new Education Bill. 

Is this an unlucky coincidence? l^ot at all. It is 
what Goldsmith's bear-leader called a "concatenation ac- 
cordingly." Eifty years ago, before the advent of 
Popular Education, our middle-class young men in 
London and the large towns, saw a great deal of 



Popular Education 31 

Shakespeare in the theatre, studied him there, under- 
stood him, were greatly amused by him, could quote 
him largely, and could intelligently compare the varied 
renderings of his great speeches by different actors. 
In those days, every large town in England could see 
six or eight, perhaps a dozen, plays of Shakespeare 
every season, together with Sheridan's comedies and 
other sterling stuff. Many of the parts were very 
badly performed, but there was always some good act- 
ing by actors who could speak blank verse, and knew 
that it had to be delivered in a different way from 
modern slipshod slang. In places like Manchester 
and Edinburgh quite remarkably good Shakespearean 
acting was frequently to be seen. The little city of 
Exeter, in one season of the seventies, saw more Shake- 
epearean acting than London has seen for the last two 
years. Sprung from these old traditions, Henry Irving, 
before Popular Education had begun to guide the taste 
of the masses in the theatre, started his series of memor- 
able Shakespearean revivals at the Lyceum, and car- 
ried them on in spite of the fact #hat under a regime 
of universal Popular Education, Shakespeare was gi-ad- 
ually waning and dying. And now Popular Education 
has done its perfect work, and Shakespeare is dead 
in the only place where he will ever exercise a fruitful 
influence upon the English masses — the English the- 
atre. 

Shakespeare is dead in the English theatre, but he is 
still alive in the German theatre — even during the war, 
so far as one can learn. 

Shakespeare is dead in the English theatre, and with 
him are dead our hopes of a living modern intellectual 
drama. For he was our leader and standard-bearer. 
He explored for us English character at its sources, 



32 Patriotism and 

and held before us its best and truest and most en- 
during types; he gave us to translate into terms of 
modern life, stupendous displays of all the permanent 
passions and moods of humanity in gi-eat and full de- 
ploy; he taught us, not the cheap tricks of the play- 
wi'ight, but the sovereign art of the dramatist. We 
have lost our gi-eat model, and with him our craft has 
almost disappeared. We cannot hope for a worthy Eng- 
lish national drama until Shakespeare is restored to 
his place, as its perpetual fount of inspiration, and 
source of intellectual and spiritual energy. 

Shakespeare is dead in the English theatre. The 
average playgoer to-day has not enough knowledge of 
human nature to recognize the enduring truth of 
Shakespeare's characters; not enough humour to enjoy 
Shakespeare's rich comedy ; not enough serious purpose 
in life to delight in Shakespeare's tragedy ; not enough 
patience to listen to Shakespeare's speeches ; not enough 
mental energy to understand them; not enough educa- 
tion to take pleasure in Shakespeare's poetry, and wit, 
and the beauty and wisdom of his dialogue. To tlie 
average playgoer to-day Shakespeare is largely incom- 
prehensible — a bore, a nuisance, an affliction. And 
this after fifty years of Popular Education! The 
average playgoers of fifty years ago did take some 
pleasure in seeing Shakespeare, did to some extent 
understand him, had some considerable knowledge of 
him, and were not bored and baffled by him. 

Shakespeare is dead in the English theatre. Who 
or what has taken his place? 

If I had a mortal enmity against some man of good 
sense and sound education, who by good fortune knew 
nothing of our present English theatres and music halls, 
I would mercilessly sentence him to visit nightly the 



Popular Education 33 

entertainments that are taking place there. I would 
suppose him to have no knowledge of what he was 
going to see, and I would set him to watch the audience 
carefully, and to note what were the things that most 
interested and amused them, the things that moved 
them to raptures of applause. And I would then ask 
him what kind of Popular Education the masses of them 
must have received, and which had resulted in their 
setting up for themselves such standards of amusement. 

I wish I could induce you, sir, in the interests of 
Popular Education, to visit our music halls and paost 
popular theatres. Let me again affirm that it is here 
where our masses are getting the education that is most 
operative upon their daily life, and conduct, and char- 
acter. 

In one or two of our better theatres you would find 
an occasional play or sketch in which we can take 
pride, as being not merely empty amusement, false sen- 
timent, crude sensation, or veiled sensuality. Amongst 
all our thousands of nightly entertainments, it would be 
strange if we could not show some glimmers of serioua 
wit and wisdom. You would find much harmless fun 
and nonsense. So far, good; inasmuch as they ease 
overtaxed minds and bodies, and perhaps in some cases 
afford a welcome relief from your continuation classes. 
Provided fine and serious work is being done and seen 
in the theatre, I am wholly in favour of giving the 
masses large refreshing draughts of harmless fun and 
nonsense. 

How wise is good tomfoolery, how healthful, how life- 
giving! But it must be good tomfoolery, that does 
really ease the mind, and does not drug and besot, and 
dull the faculties to the perception of what is of value 
and meaning in life. 



34 Patriotism and 

I think, sir, that if you, in your office as Minister of 
Education, were to make constant visits to our theatres 
and music halls, you would find that the bulk, the sta- 
ple, of the education which, in the absence of any wise 
government encouragement of this kind of higher edu- 
cation, the people are there providing for themselves, 
is mostly of a vulgar and banal sort, tending greatly 
to their intellectual and spiritual degradation. 

There is very little outward indecency ; though I have 
heard a blazing popular comedian deliver lines of ill- 
concealed filthiness, for which his hourly rate of pay 
was probably ten times as much as you receive for su- 
perintending the education of the kingdom. But un- 
veiled indecency is very rare. There is very much less 
of it than there was fifty years ago. In the lower 
grades of entertainment there is undoubtedly a good 
deal of improvement. Our lowest kinds of entertain- 
ment have become more decorous, less fi'ankly in- 
decent, but probably more essentially vulgar and mean- 
ingless: on the whole, perhaps le:s amusing. The 
higher forms of drama, everything that could give 
mental exhilaration and intellectual enjoyment, every- 
thing that could tend to encourage a great and serious 
spirit in the nation, have been almost swept away from 
our stage. Though under stress, we are splendidly 
showing that this great and serious spirit is still dwell- 
ing in us. 

The bulk and staple of our middle-class and lower 
middle-class entertainments are largely compact of dull 
mediocrity, banality, tawdry sentiment, rank sensation, 
horribly vulgar sensual suggestion, and sheer imbecil- 
ity. Frank riotous indecency would, in many cases, 
be more tolerable, for it would at least have a savour 



Popular Education 35 

of vital Innnan nature, even if a rank, disagreeable 
savour. 

When the war had heen in progress for long over 
two years, and we were in deadly grapple for our 
lives, I saw at a West End theatre a large troupe of 
chorus girls, all uniformed as men, in tightly-fitting 
coats, cut short with little flaps, so as to display the 
least attractive part of their bodies, and set off with 
other items of man's attire in garish colours; the 
whole costume being a pattern and model of vile, ugly, 
senseless, bad taste. The girls had been drilled to per- 
form in unison a series of quite meaningless operations 
and evolutions, waving their arms, lifting their legs, 
placing their bodies in ridiculous ungraceful attitudes, 
and sometimes flaunting unconsciously that terribly 
conspicuous and least attractive part of their bodies 
which the costume seemed chiefly designed to "exploit." 
The hideous exhibition was accompanied by music that 
could only be described as appropriate to it. I had 
come into the theatre reading of horrible battle carnage 
in Flanders. My heart sank within me, and I hurried 
away from this more dreadful scene. 

That sickening masquerade of idiocy and bad tastq 
had cost some thousands of pounds to "produce." It 
is a not unfair sample of what has been a staple of 
English amusement at many of our popular, and at 
some of our most fashionable, theatres for many years 
past. Many millions of money have been wasted 
merely to degrade and hebetate the playgoing public, 
and to make them unfit to understand Shakespeare, 
and whatever might give them intellectual delight in 
drama. A dozen years before the war, I pointed out 
that the money so spent would have bought us an en- 



86 Patriotism and 

tire fleet. It would have gone far towards raising 
that extra army corps or two, whereby Lord French 
might have saved Lille. 

The Lord Chamberlain licenses the prodigal display 
of this and kindred idiocy, and until lately has for- 
bidden Sophocles, Ibsen, Maeterlinck, and Brieux. The 
press, many of the leading London daily papers, almost 
invariably approve this style of entertainment, praise 
it lavishly in terms of sympathy and affection, rarely 
condemn even its most vicious excesses, and judge it by 
a standard that leaves no hope for any serious modern 
drama to spring up amongst us. 

If I can persuade you, sir, as I hope I may (seeing 
how intimately this matter is connected with Popular 
Education) — if I can persuade you to visit our popular 
places of entertainment, I will ask you to take particu- 
lar note of the style and quality of the dialogue that 
is spoken on our stage, not only in these pieces, but in 
those that have a dramatic form. It is to be always 
remembered that whatever success may be justly due 
to dresses, scenery, and other legitimate aids to our 
enjoyment in the theatre — it is to be remembered that 
it is only the actual dialogue that gives permanent 
worth and value to a play. By his dialogue alone a 
dramatist lives; by its vigour, precision, simplicity, 
brilliancy, or fitness to the character and the situation. 
Though, to obtain success in the theatre, the dramatist 
must have many other qualities and accomplishments. 

What is the kind and quality of the average dialogue 
that is spoken on the English stage to-day? Here I 
hope you will allow that Popular Education is directly 
and crucially concerned. For surely if its effects are 
visible and measurable anvwhere, it will be in our 
popular theatres, by watching wLat modes of talk, 



Popular Education 37 

what kind of dialogue are most relished by the au- 
dience; what they tolerate, what they endure, what 
they reject. 

We have seen that they now utterly reject Shake- 
speare, though until lately they have allowed him to 
bore them mildly, when he has been smothered up in 
irrelevant scenery, gorgeous dresses, music, dances, and 
processions. To take a much lower level, English play- 
goers forty years ago delighted in the burlesques of 
Byron and Burnand, which had many amusing scenes 
of parody and often contained genuine wit. Their 
dialogue, if not of any great style or distinction, was 
far better English than is generally to be heard in our 
modern musical plays. We have a school of modern 
light comedy which is incomparably better than any- 
thing of its kind that was to bo seen on the English 
stage forty years ago. Its dialogue has great charm, 
ease, naturalness. It generally lacks that underlying 
seriousness which is the mark of the greatest comedy. 
It avoids all but drawing-room topics and issues. There- 
fore it doesn't cut into our national life. Its vogue 
and influence are almost limited to London. 

If we examine carefully the average dialogue that is 
spoken in our popular theatres, alike fashionable, mid- 
dle class, and lower class, we shall find that most of it 
is slovenly, uncoUoquial, and insincere. The vast pro- 
portion of it is very bad English. While, in the class 
of popular entertainment that has lately swamped our 
theatres to the exclusion of all serious work, the aver- 
age conversation is often fitted to the mouths of a 
party of rowdy shopboys frolicking with disreputable 
minxes on a bank holiday. 

I will give a sample. The following sentence was 
spoken in a fashionable West End theatre, in a piece 



38 Patriotism and 

that had no connected story or discoverable plot ; where 
none of the personages, so far as I could discern, acted 
from any intelligible motive, or had any reason for be- 
ing in the places where they found themselves. There 
was a succession of bright tawdry scenes, a display of 
gorgeous dresses, a crowd of chorus girls, and several 
star performers of both sexes, who appeared in dif- 
ferent disguises throughout this disordered maze and 
revel of insanity. The leading comedian was making 
advances to the leading lady. 

"I suppose you mean to infer that I'm hot stuff," 
she replied. 

I am fastidious in the matter of dialogue, and I claim 
that this line should have read, "Then you think I'm a 
whore." 

That is good Shakespearean English, and it says 
what she meant in exactly half the number of sylla- 
bles. It has also the merit of implying a reproof 
instead of a sanction for further impropriety. 

The word I have used is a plain, coarse one, but it is 
not really so coarse or so filthy as the term actually 
used. Many plain, coarse things exist in the world, 
and plain, coarse words are necessary to denote them; 
unless we would deceive ourselves and corrupt our 
language. Integrity of speech is the sign of integrity 
of character. The right use of words means the right 
perception of facts. The right perception of facts 
gives a power of control over such of them as are 
amendable to our control. English people always think 
they have escaped from an ugly fact when they have 
merely escaped from an ugly word. Our present ca- 
lamities and misfortunes can be directly traced to our 
inveterate habit of supposing ourselves to be in the 



Popular Education 39 

region of facts when we are merely in tlie region of 
words. 

"I suppose you mean to infer that I'm hot stuff." 
The words were spoken by a very accomplished and 
beautiful woman, a born high comedienne of a rare 
type, who in any healthy condition of our stage would 
be delighting educated audiences in such parts as Eosa- 
lind and Lady Teazle. And she was serving out to a 
thoughtless crowd a nauseous stew compounded of folly, 
inanity, vulgarity, and such disguised or undisguised 
impropriety as I have quoted. It is heart-breaking to 
think of the numbers of trained actors and actresses who 
are defrauding the drama of their most valuable art, 
and are being "exploited" to degTade the public taste, 
and to corrupt the English language. There is a wealth 
of potential talent which is being constantly drained 
off to this debasing service. 

"I suppose you mean to infer that I'm hot stuff." 
Sir, I claim that this is a fair sample of much of the 
dialogue that is nightly spoken in the majority of the 
theatres of our country, and this to the immense ap- 
proval and enjoyment of crowded audiences. I do not 
say that there^re not better things to be found, which 
if they do not tend to the purity and vigour of our 
mother tongue, at least do not corrupt it. But a popu- 
lar English audience seems to laugh, at anything except 
wit. The last time I saw "The School for Scandal" 
there was scarcely a laugh except at some interpolated 
gags. Yet one would think that Sheridan's dialogue 
had a perennial power of amusement, even for the least 
educated person. But Sheridan has vanished from 
our stage in company with Shakespeare. 

"I suppose you mean to infer that I'm hot stuff." 



40 Patriotism and 

That is a fair sample of the dialogue that most 
amuses an average popular audience. What kind and 
what level of Popular or General Education does it im- 
ply? 

Surely it is one of the first concerns of Popular Edu- 
cation to teach our children the right use of our native 
tongue. The quality of the dialogue most approved and 
enjoyed by the vast audiences in our popular theatres, 
is a measure of the quality of the training they have re- 
ceived in English gi-ammar, speech, and literature. It 
has always been a cherished duty of the French thea- 
tre to preserve the purity of the French language. And 
the good effect of this is shown in the diction and man- 
ners of the French lower and middle classes. The al- 
most unanimous enjoyment by our vast theatre-going 
public of such sloppy, pert, and vicious dialogue as I 
have quoted is, I respectfully submit, sir, a grave re- 
proach to that part of our system of Popular Education 
which is responsible for teaching them the English lan- 
guage. A man's vocabulary is the direct expression of 
the quality and the value of the education he has re- 
ceived. My old carpenter had a far stronger, nobler 
power of speech than the vast majority of the audiences 
in our popular theatres, brought up under Popular 
Education. His vocabulary was certainly very limited ; 
but it was a clear, simple, racy vernacular, dealing ha- 
bitually with realities. 

I do not propose to banish slang from the drama. It 
will always be current in daily talk, and the theatre 
naturally and rightly adopts it in like measure. Slang 
is necessary to the gTOwth of a language, and is always 
one of its feeders. A language without slang is a dead 
language. An abundance of curt, virile slang is a sign 
of rude, boisterous vitality in a language. That very 



Popular Education 41 

small part of the current slang of the day which is 
found to be serviceable, creeps into the language, as 
parvenus creep into good society, gains an acknowledged 
position, and becomes an approved mode of speech. The 
rest drops speedily into disuse. Slang is also useful 
for the correction of prigs, and for the annoyance of 
superior persons. But an abundance of meaningless, 
vicious slang is the sign of general stupidity, befuddle- 
ment, and mental depravity. The mere fact that some 
slang is spoken in our theatres is not in itself a sign 
of degradation in our drama. The evil is that a pe- 
culiarly noxious kind of slang has become the staple 
dialogue of our national form of entertainment, that it 
is almost universal, that it is spoken to the virtual exclu- 
sion of good sense and fine feeling, and to the wide 
corruption of our native tongue. This kind of slang is 
sometimes used in our fashionable comedies with the 
implied sympathy and approval of the author and audi- 
ence. It is part of the business of comedy to correct 
bad habits of speech, by exposing them to ridicule. 
When vicious forms of slang are put into the mouths of 
characters designed to be sympathetic, they are made 
popular; the value of our ordinary coins of speech is 
lowered, and a defaced and debased verbal and mental 
currency is sent into wide circulation. 

A man of sterling character, good sense, and sound 
mental fibre, even if of limited education, rarely uses 
and rarely enjoys slang. Slang is habitually used only 
by young folk, and by ignorant, foolish, empty persons 
of low intelligence. Therefore, except in the portrayal 
of quite young people, slang should never be used by the 
dramatist without some implied censure or ridicula or 
at least a tolerant contempt of the character speaking ^- 

The tendency in the theatre towards flabby, diso*.- 



42 Patriotism and 

dered speech and mental confusion which. I have dwelt 
upon, had been gathering force for many years before 
the war, keeping pace with the spread of Popular Edu- 
cation. The English theatre was and is afflicted by the 
same disease as the English nation — It dare not and it 
will not face realities. Everything unpleasant or of 
serious import is to be shunned. Many times in past 
years, I have gone aside from the immediate subject 
of a lecture or essay, to point out that the immense 
vogue of a wholly frivolous, banal, and meaningless 
form of theatrical entertainment, was a warning and 
sure forerunner of national calamity. Lecturing at the 
Royal Institution in 1904, I said: ''The careless dis- 
organization and confusion of thought that reign in 
our drama, are all of a piece with the careless disor- 
ganization and confusion of thought that reign in other 
and more important matters; in our national religion; 
in our national defences; in our national industries. 
It is all due to the same causes: to our want of alert- 
ness ; our want of drill ; our want of wit ; our resolute 
national hypocrisy ; our national insensibility to ideas ; 
our national hatred of ideals. . . . Will it be any great 
wonder if we go down in the next European tussle ?" ^ 
Often before and since, I have vainly pointed out 
that while the growing inanity and empty vulgarity of 
our most popular theatrical entertainments was a dis- 
grace in itself, it yet had greater significance as a warn- 
ing of national aberration and disintegration. There 
was a co-ordination of our inability to think clearly, 
sincerely, and seriously in the theatre, and our inability 
to think clearly, sincerely, and seriously about the great 
concerns of our national existence. The Germans per- 

* "Foundations of a National Drama," See also other kin- 
dred passages in the same volume. 



Popular Education 43 

ceived this, and since the war have jeeringly pointed it 
out to us. They plainly saw that as we were gradually 
becoming destitute of common sens© and incapable of 
serious thought in the theatre, so we were gradually 
becoming destitute of common sense and incapable of 
serious thought in shaping the destinies of our empire. 
The French, with their bright, clear intelligence, have 
also perceived it. When we take our masterpieces to 
Paris, we merely baffle and bewilder French critics and 
playgoers. M. Adolphe Brisson in "Le Temps" com- 
plains of the puerility of the English plays he has seen, 
and of their lack of relationship to real life. He won- 
ders how such childish stuff — either pantomime or sick- 
ly sentimental — can please the public of London or of 
!New York. With the Germans pressing hard towards 
Calais as I write, the English nation is at last obliged 
to face realities. Let us hope that the English theatre 
will be obliged to follow suit. 

Immediately after the outbreak of war, there was a 
wide and almost universal expansion of the form of 
theatrical entertainment that I have described. The 
folly, frivolity, and dull banality of musical comedy, 
had for some time been giving place to a stiU more wit- 
less and purposeless form of N^eo-Tomf oolery ; even 
more empty of good sense, good taste, and good feeling; 
full of foolish muddled thought and pernicious entice- 
ment; the racketty gambol of a ribaudred nag on a 
jaunt towards the brothel. 

"No one who is not led astray by his whimsies, will 
be so foolish as to suppose that the theatre will ever be 
entirely cleared of immxr-ality. Let us in these days 
have the courage to face and to acknowledge realities. 
Theatres of a certain class will always have subterra- 
nean passages to the brothel, and the lowest houses 



44 Patriotism and 

will Have more or less open access. The Puritans tried 
to avoid this evil by doing away with theatres alto- 
gether, thereby calling into existence the festival of un- 
disguised indecency on the Kestoration stage. But the 
Restoration comedies are purged of much of their bad 
effect by the brilliancy of their wit, and the force of 
their portraiture of town life. I confess myself a. great 
admirer of the wit and characiterization of Congreve, 
Vanbrugh, and CoUey Gibber. I do not think their 
comedies had nearly so much evil influence upon their 
audiences as many of our present entertainments have 
upon our modern audiences. When we are intent upon 
watching a well-drawn character, or listening to witty 
talk, we are drawn away from sensual suggestion. 

The Puritans tried to close the theatres altogether. 
That is allowed to be impossible to-day. It is startling, 
though on second thoughts it is seen to be quite nat- 
ural, to find that the silly, holy horror of the acted 
drama, which has always been one of our pet national 
whimsies, should lead to the establishment amongst us, 
as our national evening pastime, of the most frivolous, 
futile, and perhaps most morally degrading form of en- 
tertainment that has ever wasted and soiled the leisure 
of a civilized nation. The opposition that would meet 
any Government proposal to guide and inspire the 
Popular Education of the people in the theatre, is a 
chief reason that England, with her native aptitude for 
great and serious drama, with her record of past proud 
leadership in this civilizing and humanizing art, has 
to-day a national theatre so intellectually bankrupt and 
imbecile that its main productions are laughing-stocks 
to our enemies, and objects of bewilderment and con- 
tempt to our Allies. 
■^ The outbreak of the war seemed to provoke an orgy 



Popular Education 45 

of extravagant, incolierent, vicious gaiety in our popu- 
lar theatres. The scenery became more garish and cost- 
ly ; larger troupes of chorus girls in scantier dresses pa- 
raded more and more of their physical charms ; blazing 
popular comedians paraded less and less of their intel- 
lectual powers. One production was advertised to cost 
£15,000. 

The London variety stage burst into a romp of flam- 
ing licentiousness. There were mutterings of disap- 
proval. Somebody called out for the Lord Chamber- 
lain. One manager defended himself by saying that he 
had the Lord Chamberlain's licence, without intending 
thereby to demonstrate the Lord Chamberlain's impo- 
tent acquiescence and official approval of this class of 
entertainment. Another manager defended himself by 
saying that his "show" was "clean," without giving any 
definition of the word, and without admitting that of 
two evils, it is much better to be dirty than imbecile. 

The bishops got fidgetty. Clergymen occasionally 
look in at the theatre, sometimes to reprove its immo- 
rality; sometimes to beam on a piece of rosy twaddle; 
sometimes to advertise widely, the soul-saving qualities 
of some comic travesty of religion, such as "Have you 
found Jesus ?" by Mr. Godly Slime. 

The bishops got fidgetty. It was pointed out to them 
that though there might be flaming licentiousness at 
some theatres, there was a compensating amount of 
rosy twaddle at other theatres. Upon hearing this, the 
bishops seemed to be satisfied. They quieted down, and 
the subject dropped. 

We are used to these periodic eruptions of outraged 
morality against the theatre. We never learn that flam- 
ing licentiousness and rosy twaddle are the inevitable 
counterparts of each other. We never learn that a sane, 



46 Patriotism and 

sincere, intellectual drama is the enemy of tbem both, 
and the best security for a wholesome, invigorating at- 
mosphere in the theatre. 

"'No !" we cry out. "Let all our plays be rosy twad- 
dle ! Let wax doll morality be decreed in all our the- 
atres ! Let our drama avoid all 'unpleasant' subjects ! 
Let it not dare to tell us unwelcome truths about our- 
selves! Let it make no demand upon our serious 
thought, and no criticism upon our vices ! Let it spurn 
the realities of life!" 

Having thus delivered ourselves, we go to sleep until 
human nature revenges itself upon rosy twaddle, and 
makes another defiant exhibition of all its ugly naked- 
ness. 

The bishops may be sure that an enforcement of rosy 
twaddle will not banish licentiousness from our thea- 
tres. Rather, by the natural law of reaction, rosy twad- 
dle is likely to encourage an outbreak of licentiousness. 
I do not wish to shut out rosy twaddle altogether from 
our stage. Wholesome rosy twaddle may be necessary 
for our growing girls, if they will go to theatres; as 
wholesome adventure and stirring heroism are certainly 
good for our gi'owing boys. But rosy twaddle is not a 
good preparation for the realities of life, even for 
growing girls. And the present generation of them 
will have to live in a world of cruel and piercing reali- 
ties, and not in a dreamland of rosy twaddle. It is a 
very difficult and thorny question. The onus lies upon 
individual fathers and mothers, and will always lie 
upon them. 

If the bishops, by an occasional protest, or by their 
occasional patronage of rosy twaddle, could succeed in 
driving out immorality from the theatre, they would 
only drive the most of it to take shelter elsewhere — 



Popular Education 47 

some of it perhaps in churclies. If the bishops really 
wish to raise our decadent and moribund drama, let 
them not try to enforce a universal reign of rosy twad- 
dle, but let them give their help and countenance to 
establish the vogue of a national school of sincere and 
serious modem drama and comedy, whose first aim shall 
be to face the great realities of our national life and 
character, and to tell us the truth about them in a way 
that will amuse and interest thoughtful and educated 
people of all classes. Let clergymen bestow the very 
precious and welcome pecuniary aid of pious advertise- 
ment and benediction upon plays of this class, and not 
upon rosy twaddle stuffed with cheap false sentiment, 
or upon holy twaddle of the "Have-you-found-Jesus" 
type. The theatre is not the place to save men's souls. 
It is the place to give us thoughtful amusement, to instil 
a large and sane knowledge of life, to educate us in- 
sensibly in the supreme science of wise living. Surely, 
sir, this latter is the most necessary and most impor- 
tant part of "general" education. The theatre at its 
best is the most potent instrument of "general" educa- 
tion. And the people will give it to themselves, if only 
they can be rightly trained and led. 

When Popular Education was introduced fifty years 
ago, it might have been confidently prophesied, "This 
will indirectly lead to a wide knowledge and apprecia- 
tion of Shakespeare in his native home, the theatre. 
This will train our populace to recognize and demand 
the best the drama can give them." Alas ! As Popular 
Education became more popular, Shakespeare became 
more unpopular, until we have finally kicked him off 
our stage. When we set out for battle, instead of call- 
ing upon Shakespeare to fortify us with his patriotism, 
to inflame us with his passion for England, to counsel 



48 Patriotism and 

U8 from his stores of radiant wisdom, and to amuse 
us with his rich, hearty humour — instead of this, we 
called for an obscene imp to tickle us with idiot quips, 
and becks, and leers, and smirks, and to jig with us to 
immeasurable jeopardy and sorrow and disaster. In- 
stead of listening to the arousing music and thrilling 
trumpets of Shakespeare's verse, we listened to a 
crazy jingle of ragtime ditties and dances. Instead of 
applauding the noble, vigorous speech of Shakespeare, 
we applauded the fetid drivel of revue. 

Has this nothing to do with the Popular Education 
our nation has received, and is receiving ? Does it not 
point to something wrong in its conception, or in its 
matter, or in its standards, or in its methods, or in its 
instruments, or in its recipients? 

I affirm that there is the most intimate connexion 
between Popular Education and the present intellectual 
degradation of nine-tenths of our popular amusements. 
England, as I write, hangs insecurely over a gulf of ir- 
retrievable ruin, not, indeed, because we have rejected 
Shakespeare from our theatres, but because in other and 
greater matters we have also rejected high standards; 
because as in the drama, so in matters of national life 
or death, we have fobbed ourselves with words, and 
stuffed our heads with trash, and our souls with insin- 
cerities. Our hope now is in the valour and tenacity 
of our soldiers. How like a granite fortress they stand, 
invulnerable. How splendid they are in battle. That 
is because in battle they have to be led, and they have to 
obey. Then the greatness of their strength appears. 

!N^o one would grudge the brave fellows who have 
been hourly risking their lives for us, whatever merri- 
ment and frolic may serve to relax them and refit them 
for their further dreadful struggle. The fierce excite- 



Popular Education 49 

ment of the times explains, and perhaps excuses, a good 
deal of frivolity and licentiousness. Physicians hold 
the key to that. It is perhaps inevitable. But it is none 
the less to be discouraged and deplored. 

I have proclaimed myself a great lover of good tom- 
foolery. But the tomfoolery seen and heard in English 
theatres of recent years, has been for the most part such 
bad, dull, witless, and, in some cases, such evil tomfool- 
ery. There has, of course, been a considerable mixture 
of clever and amusing stuff, and occasionally a rare 
gem of parody, or of gi-otesque buffoonery. When near- 
ly all the popular theatres in a nation are given up to 
tomfoolery, we may surely look for an occasional relief 
from the monotony of tawdry, vulgar, jiggetty non- 
sense. But how comparatively rare it has been ! Sure- 
ly any ordinary sensible man, aware of the value of 
life and the seriousness of the times, who has visited 
our most popular entertainments of late years, must 
have agreed with the Preacher of old, "I said of laugh- 
ter, it is mad, and of mirth, what doeth it ? It is bet- 
ter to hear the rebuke of the wise than the song of fools. 
As the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laugh- 
ter of fools. Madness is in their heart while they live, 
and after that they go to the dead." 

It has been claimed that these entertainments re- 
fresh and exhilarate our soldiers on leave from the 
front. I passionately deny that the greater part of the 
tomfoolery at our popular theatres can refresh or ex- 
hilarate anybody with a mind much above that of a 
chimpanzee, or with tastes and habits of thought much 
above those of a Whitechapel roysterer on Margate pier. 
Good tomfoolery refreshes and exhilarates only a 
healthy vigorous mind, and this only after it has tired 
itself in strenuous exercise. Witless, sniggering, bla- 



50 Patriotism and 

tant tomfoolery may give a kind of tipsy refreshment 
and exhilaration to those whoso habit or "general" edu- 
cation makes them crave for it, as Eccles craved for 
cool, refreshing gin. But that only shows what in- 
grained tomfools they are. To pour the latest vulgar 
slang and nonsense into minds already soaked with it, 
is an occupation not worthy of our many fine and ac- 
complished a(ttors and actresses who are nightly engaged 
in it, but worthy only of a scullery maid pouring greasy, 
dish-water down a sink, or of a farm labourer unloading 
a dung-cart on to a manure heap. I wrong the scullery 
maid and the farm labourer. They are doing clean and 
useful work. 

I passionately deny that stupid and vulgar tomfool- 
ery can have any other effect than to befuddle and he- 
betate the mind, to deaden its perception of what is ex- 
cellent, and to slacken the ardours and resolves of duty 
and patriotism. 

I think I h(!ar a mocking laugh from our grim enemy, 
as he squats there with his eyes and guns cocked to- 
wards Calais, jeering at "music hall" England, and 
hugging himself to think that "if we had possessed the 
spirit of Shakespeare we should long ago have won the 
war." But he shall find that the spirit of Shakespeare 
is again stirring in us, and in those thrice-armed breasts 
that are beating back the flood of German savagery in 
Flanders. 

Let us supix)so that on the outbreak of the war, the 
Government, from some reason of economy, or from 
some necessity of State, had put in force the Defence 
of the Realm Act, and had decreed that for a year no 
English theatre should play anything but Shakespeare, 
and this with scenery already painted. I do not say 
that such a measure was possible, or even advisable. But 



Popular Education 51 

if, from national necessity, it had been passed and en- 
forced, does anyone doubt that it would have corrected 
and enormously raised the tastes of our theatre-goers, 
that it would have given them a new high standard of 
drama and comedy, that it would have developed in 
many of them a love for what is best in our literature, 
enlarged their views of life, quickened their patriotism, 
and made them more fit to perform their duties to their 
country ? Does anyone doubt that it would have given 
us a higher standard of acting, and discovered actors 
with a special gift for interpreting our national drama ? 
Does anyone doubt that such a measure would have 
promoted a wise sparing of time and money? That it 
would have saved all those hundreds of thousands, per- 
haps millions, of pounds that were spent for the most 
part in wasteful extravagance on scenery and dresses 
that are now on the dust-heap and in the rag-bag ? That 
it would have saved many of the millions of pounds 
that were paid to look at tawdry spectacles? That it 
would have saved all those yet more precious golden 
hours that were spent in listening to rag-time jingles 
and choice bad English ? That it would have filled our 
leisure hours with wise, fruitful amusement that we 
need not be ashamed to recall? 

Does anyone say that it would have been a great hard- 
ship to deprive the mass of theatre-goers of their pleas- 
ure? Pleasure to listen to such dialogue as "I suppose 
you mean to infer that I'm hot stuff" ! Hardship to lis- 
ten to Shalcespeare's chanted passion and philosophy 
and rich, wise humour! bathos of Popular Educa- 
tion! O bottomless pit! 

Does anyone say that the theaties would have been 
empty? Probably at first many of them would have 
been. Fit audiences Shakespeare might have found, 



52 Patriotism and 

but very few. But in fault of getting something on the 
level of their vitiated tastes, theatre-goers would have 
grown to tolerate Shakespeare, they would have braced 
their wits to understand him, and in the end a large 
body of them would have found themselves amused and 
interested in listening to him, and in watching his vast 
panorama of human life unfold itself. Many of them 
would have got into a Shakespeare habit, as for years 
past they have got into a music-hall and variety theatre 
habit. For our national worship of music-hall nonsense 
and vulgarity is largely a habit, a fashion. We follow 
it for the same reason that we do many other stupid 
things — because other people do them. And we keep 
on doing it for the same reason. The habit, the fashion 
came in with the foolish years of heedless luxury before 
the war; it was one of our many reckless invocations 
to national calamity. 

But those ignoble years of national slackness and 
fatty degeneration have passed. We are finding that 
hardship is our best schoolmaster, and necessity our 
best counsellor. These it is that prove our mettle, and 
heighten our courage, and arm our souls. After the 
war we shall have many hardships to endure. Let us 
brace ourselves to endure even the supreme hardship of 
listening to a little Shakespeare in our theatres. We 
may not like it at first ; it will be a severe call upon such 
mental powers as wo possess. But when he has schooled 
us for a time, and as our intelligence in the theatre be- 
gins to waken, we shall find there is an increasing 
wealth of wise amusement to be obtained from him, and 
the noisome folly and inanity of the years that have 
gone will stink in our memory. 

It has lately been brought to your notice that our 
present Education Acts, by the clauses that restrict the 



Popular Education 53 

employment of children in theatres, really disallow the 
performance of at least five of Shakespeare's most popu- 
lar and most enjoyable plays — "Macbeth," ''King 
John," "The Winter's Tale," "The Merry Wives of 
Windsor," and "The Midsummer ISTight's Dream." 
"The Tempest" is also practically prohibited. Many 
modern plays of very high reputation are also excluded 
from our stage. And many more that might be written 
are stayed from seeing the light. We may say that our 
Education Acts forbid the performance, and the writing 
of all plays that have parts of an age less than four- 
teen. For these parts require attendance at rehearsal, 
and though rehearsals are pleasurable rather than fa- 
tiguing to the child, they take up some considerable 
time. And if the child has to play in one piece and 
rehearse in another, it is obvious that the time for school 
and play must be reduced. 

We are all agreed that our first concern should be the 
health and welfare of the children. Let that be clearly 
understood. Kow the theatrical life is a very healthy 
one. The work in itself is not exacting, and is full of 
pleasant and not injurious excitement. It is done in 
the company of one's fellows, and before encouraging 
spectators ; and this in itself is exhilarating, and drives 
away nervous fancies and morbid thoughts. An actor, 
if he exercises ordinary self-control, has more than an 
average expectation of good health and long life. Here 
we may mention such names as Mrs. Siddons, Helen 
Faucit, Ellen Terry, Mrs. Kendal, and Lady Bancroft, 
and, above all, Sarah Bernhardt, who, at an unmen- 
tionable age, has lately been delighting large audiences 
in two continents with eight or ten performances a week 
of the most exhausting leading roles. All the famous 
English actresses I have named were born on the stage, 



54 Patriotism and 

and educated largely by the stage. At the age when 
our Education Acts begin grudgingly and obstructively 
to allow our young people to make their first appear- 
ance, nearly all the most honoured actresses* of the Eng- 
lish theatre had played mor& parts than our present 
leading ladies will play in tlieir lifetime. It may be 
claimed that, so far from being detrimental to health 
and long life, a theatrical career tends to promote 
them. In the matter of morality, at all the leading 
popular theatres, neither at rehearsal nor at perform- 
ance, is there any evident violation of decency or mo- 
rality that a child would notice. At some of the less 
reputable houses there may be lax behaviour and occa- 
sional breaches of decorum, but not more glaring than 
would be forced on a child's attention at the street cor- 
ners of the same neighbourhood. The necessarily con- 
stant work and driving bustle of every stage, and esper 
cially the variety stage, tend to shut out the opportunity 
of any such openly indecent and immoral behaviour as 
would be likely to contaminate a child. Observant chil- 
dren would be more likely to see indications of such 
behaviour in the auditorium, and on the whole would 
be more protected from it if they were behind the 
scenes. It may be urged that, according to my own 
showing, much of the dialogue in popular variety pieces 
is unfit for children's ears. I agree most cordially. I 
would certainly protect children from hearing it. I 
would equally protect the older performers from speak- 
ing it I would also protect the entire audiences from 
listening to it, if that were possible. 

If, sir, in place of forbidding children under the age 
of fourteen to speak Shakespeare on our stage, you 
could decree that no person under the age of eighty 
should listen to much of the dialogue that is current 



Popular Education 55 

there, you would be rendering a great service to na- 
tional education, for you would be helping to check the 
nightly corruption of the English language. You 
would also be indirectly rendering a great service to 
our decrepit modern drama, which under our present 
regime is threatened with extinction. May I again 
point out that although nonsense and frivolity, tinc- 
tured with more or less veiled indecency, have always 
obtained some footing on every stage, it was not until 
Popular Education asserted its sway and force, that 
these undesirable elements of entertainment obtained 
a national vogue; became the national dialect of the 
English stage; became our national way of expressing 
ourselves in the theatre ; our national pride and delight ; 
our national model of popular talk ; for whose delivery 
at our most popular theatres, we are ready to pay their 
most successful exponents at the rate of about £50 an 
hour ?■ 

Since, then. Popular Education does not correct the 
present general delight in vulgarity and inanity on what 
must now be called our national stage; since, on the 
contrary, it seems to flourish and spread under Popular 
Education, may we not say that the children of the 
theatre fifty years ago were receiving behind the 
scenes an education that, in this important matter, was 
better and sounder than the education our average chil- 
dren are receiving to-day ? For they had constantly to 
listen to a fine rendering of Shakespeare's noblest pas- 
sages, and often to recite them. At any rate we may 
claim that there cannot be anything very wrong in per- 
mitting children to receive a training akin to that which 
fitted Mrs. Siddons, Helen Eaucit, Ellen Terry, Mrs. 
Kendal, and Lady Bancroft for their honoured careers. 

It has been shown that our Education Acts entirely 



56 Patriotism and 

forbid the performance of five or six of Shakespeare's 
best and most popular plajs. In reality they tend to 
ban the performance of Shakespeare altogether. Shake- 
speare's leading parts, if they are to be played so as to 
give anything approaching a full measure of enjoyment 
to the audience, demand not only great natural powers 
in the actors, but they demand also an early training of 
these powers, and a constant exercise of them. We are 
here again forcibly reminded that the first rule of Popu- 
lar Education should be to teach our young people, or 
to give them an opportunity of learning, those things 
that will fit them for their individual calling, and make 
them masters of it. All "general" education, except of 
the most elementary kind, should be deferred until these 
things are thoroughly learned. It was because their 
childhood was spent in acting that such actresses as 
Mrs. Siddons, Helen Faucit, and Ellen Terry could 
play Shakespeare's leading parts with such convincing 
power and passion and charm, and that Mrs. Kendal 
and Lady Bancroft could play modern parts with such 
ripeness, ease, and round, rich perfection. What a body 
and quality there was in the old acting, as of well-sea- 
soned oak, or old vintage wine ! It was because my old 
carpenter had thoroughly learned his trade as a boy 
that he could make the whole of a large, useful, durable 
cabinet with his own hands. (The door of the next 
room is interjecting noisy, irritating comments on our 
modern school of carpentry, by slipping its latch and in- 
termittently creaking and slamming. It may be alleged 
that this is due to the wind. I maintain that it is due 
to the bad education of our carpenters.) There is ex- 
actly the same difference between our old Shake- 
spearean actors and our modern amateurs, that there 
is between my old carpenter and our modem carpen- 



Popular Education 57 

ters educated under our recent acts. And the reason 
for that difference is exactly the same, namely, that 
our old actors and carpenters had received a sound and 
thorough education in their respective callings at an 
age when they were most receptive and most pliable. I 
could give you instances of the same lapse in dozens 
of other trades and callings. 

Our modem actors do well enough in modem comedy 
where nothing much more is required of them than to 
do and say those things on the stage which they do and 
say in a drawing-room. But actors trained by modern 
methods, which leave them practically amateurs, cannot 
play Shakespeare — witness some recent attempts which 
have ended in comic disaster. Shakespeare needs, even 
for a moderately successful interpretation, an early, 
long, strenuous training in acting, in speaking verse, 
and in appropriate stage bearing and manners. 

I do not say that these cannot be learned after the 
age of fourteen, but I do not think the ground-work of 
it is ever quite so well laid as in childhood. At any 
rate, if our Government is determined to rob the Eng- 
lish theatre of its means of getting a supply of Shake- 
spearean actors, and in this way immensely to lower the 
level of our drama, and thus encourage a vicious form 
of evening Popular Education throughout the land — 
if Government thus decides, then I think we are justi- 
fied in asking it to establish a Conservatoire for train- 
ing our young actors on the French model. This, if 
wisely ordered, would do something to remedy the pres- 
ent defects and evils of our theatre. The cost would 
be comparatively little, the ultimate gain to Popular 
Education would be immense. For I suppose no one, 
who is competent to judge, will question that the French 
system of training actors has immensely raised the level 



58 Patriotism and 

of French acting, and has concurrently raised the intel- 
lectual level of the French drama. This, in its turn, 
has quickened the intelligence and the critical judgment 
of French playgoers. The middle classes in the second 
circle of the Theatre Frangais are far better judges 
of a play than are the occupants of our London stalls. 
You will hear from middle-class French playgoers the 
most sound and acute dramatic criticism. In England, 
and especially of late years, there has been practically 
no critical judgment of the drama amongst our mass of 
theatre-goers. There has been a mere guzzle of popular 
amusement. How do you account for it, sir, that under a 
system of universal Popular Education, its recipients 
scarcely trouble to judge what they spend their spare 
cash and best leisure to procure ? They merely swallow 
it. 

Is it too much to ask that Government will recognize 
how valuable an instrument the drama might be in rais- 
ing the tone of Popular Education, and give us a Con- 
servatoire, as an approach to a soundly-organized and 
well-managed ^NTational Theatre, when the time and the 
circumstances shall be favourable to its establishment? 
Again I affirm that the clauses in our Education Acts 
which forbid the employment of children under four- 
teen, tend both directly and indirectly to shut out 
Shakespeare and the better forms of modem drama, and 
thus throw wide open the stage doors of our theatres to 
mediocrity, scatterbrain frivolity, and romping imbe- 
cility. 

What I have said applies chiefly to the exclusion of 
children from our stage so far as this affects a sound 
training for their future career. This is distinct from 
the more important question of forbidding them to ap- 
pear in parts that demand to be played by children of 



Popular Education 59 

ages from four up to fourteen. This is a most serious 
handicap for the modern drama, to saj nothing of the 
five or six excluded plays of Shakespeare. There are 
many stories of the stage that insist that a child or chil- 
dren shall be actually seen and heard. They would lose 
their poignancy and meaning, and the play would be 
pointless or impossible, without the presence of the 
child, and the drift or force of its spoken words. Many 
of our best and most deservedly popular modern plays, 
numbered by dozens, have children's scenes which are 
of the first importance in the scheme; though they are 
in most instances quite short, call for no great intelli- 
gence, and put no strain upon the little actor or actress. 
IsTumerous instances will occur to everybody who knows 
the repertory of the modern English stage. 

In considering this question let us put first the wel- 
fare of the child. So far as modern drama of the high- 
er class is concerned, these children's parts are compara- 
tively few in number — that is, when we count them in 
the entire volume of modern stage characters. The 
child is pleasantly engaged, is generally petted and 
feted in the theatre, and is not called upon for any 
great physical or mental exertion. 2^o stage child of 
to-day has to work a quarter so hard as the great ac- 
tresses whom I have named, worked from their earliest 
years. I suppose their life, from the time they could 
take part in a general cast, was one of constant re- 
hearsals by day and acting till a late hour every night. 
Judging by results, will anyone tell me how these great 
actresses have suffered from being allowed to go upon 
the stage from their earliest days? Certainly they 
have not suffered in health. I have already touched 
upon their "general" education. 

Under the former laws that governed this matter, lie 



60 Patriotism and 

children in our modern serious plays were selected from 
a crowd of applicants, who were individually tested be- 
fore being chosen for the part. Anyone who has con- 
stantly to rehearse children for the stage, occasionally 
picks up some little imp or gamine who has a born 
genius for acting, and is most likely fit for nothing 
much else. Such a child will probably be the despair 
of your teachers, and will make mockery of your Educa- 
tion Acts. His vocation is stamped all over him, though 
he may not have reached half the years of your age lim- 
its. When you find a child in your schools of extraor- 
dinary or special mental ability, you give that child 
every opportunity to develop his natural gift to the ut- 
most. When a child is found with a natural gift for 
the great art of acting, quite as rare and precious a 
possession as marked mental ability, quite as deserv- 
ing of encouragement and fostering care, often more 
fruitful in delight for the public — why, when such a 
child is discovered, should his special abilities be 
thwarted, and his fructifying talent laid up in the nap- 
kin of "general" education? If it is said that he will 
be made a more useful citizen by being kept off the 
stage, I very much doubt it. The only sure result, so 
far as I can see, is that the child will be kept out of the 
only place where his special ability will be allowed a 
free course to develop. Let us take care that in our zeal 
to manufacture citizens all of one particular pattern of 
approved dullness and banality, we do not bar the door 
to originality, variety, genius, and leadership. 

I may point out here that our present Education laws 
would probably have robbed the English theatre of Ed- 
mund Kean, the greatest Shakespearean actor with this 
kind of temperament that our stage has known. At any; 
rate, it would have deprived him of his early training. 



Popular Education 61 

How valuable ttat early training was, is shown by the 
fact that even with the advantage of it, he yet spent his 
early manhood in constant failure in parts like Othello, 
Richard, and Shylock, and only obtained his mastery 
over them by long and continued practice. Here, again, 
it is made plain that if we are to get good and fine 
workmanship in any skilled craft, such as acting and 
carpentry, the first aim of our educational policy must 
be to see that every workman has a thorough training 
in it at an early age, even if his "general" education is 
a little neglected or deferred. How all occasions do con- 
spire to force this truth upon us ! 

If we are again to have a living Shakespeare upon 
our stage, as the model and inspirer of a living serious 
modern English drama, we must see to it that ample 
opportunities are given for our actors to have a thor- 
ough training, and to train themselves in the infinitely 
difficult, exacting, and arduous art of acting. Our 
school of modern comedy needs comparatively little 
training. It largely consists in photographing the man- 
ners and behaviour, and speaking the slipshod English 
of the drawing-room. It can best be leai'ned in a draw- 
ing-room. Our modern "national" drama, I mean the 
variety entertainment, needs comparatively little train- 
ing. It largely consists in photographing the manners 
and behaviour, and speaking the latest slang, of the 
race-course, the football field, and the public-house. It 
can best be learned in a public-house, or on a race- 
course. 

But when an actor is given words to deliver that con- 
vey great human passion or emotion, and that implicit- 
ly assert the value and meaning of life, another kind of 
training is needed. The prose of high comedy, as well 
as the lofty verse of Shakespeare, needs a long cultiva- 



62 Patriotism and 

tion and practice of delivery, if it is to reach the in- 
telligence of the hearer, and not to bore him with words 
that he cannot understand, or perhaps even hear. 

I respectfully submit to you, sir, that the prohibition 
of children from the stage tends indirectly, as I have 
shown, to lower the level of our drama, and to confirm 
the masses of theatre-goers in their natural taste for 
what is cheap, frivolous, and debasing. And the gen- 
eral result of this and other conditions is that for 
many past years, during all the fateful time before and 
after the war, the English theatre, in place of being the 
wise counsellor and amusing companion of the nation, 
has rather been its empty, witless, and lascivious jes- 
ter, and is at the present moment the most barren and 
contemptible theatre that any civilized nation has had 
for centuries. Yet our theatres were never so popular 
and prosperous as they have lately been. 

Returning to the matter of these children who show a 
very marked talent for the stage, I beg you, sir, both in 
the interests of the children themselves and of the 
drama, to permit them, with due safeg-uards, to appear 
on the stage at any age at which suitable parts require 
their presence. There will be comparatively very few 
of them, not one, perhaps, in a hundred thousand of the 
child population of the nation. 

As a matter of numbers, they are negligible. As a 
matter of principle, I claim that it is unwise and unjust 
to forbid them to exercise their natural gifts to their 
own advantage, to the delight of the public, and to the 
furthering of the best interests of the drama. But all 
children admitted to this class, and allowed to perform 
speaking parts of some importance, should be examined 
by a small committee of experts, and a certificate of 
competence given. I daresay the Academy of Dramatic 



Popular Education 63 

Art, assisted by Miss Italia Conti, would undertake this 
necessary function, and thus guard against any abuse 
of the privilege. 

The rest of the children, who are required in some 
numbers for the due performance of pantomime and 
other spectacle or poetic plays, and for certain charm- 
ing children's plays whose disappearance would be a 
great loss to the theatre, and would deprive the public 
of much pure and innocent enjoyment — these children 
should also be allowed to appear on our stage, under 
careful safeguards and restrictions, l^o special ability, 
or aptitude for acting is demanded from the children 
thus employed. All that most of them are called upon 
to do, is to dance and skip about the stage. It may 
be noted that "The Midsummer Night's Dream" and 
"The Merry Wives of Windsor" are among the plays 
that require a number of such children for their per- 
formance. More than the children with a special talent 
for acting, these children are perhaps likely to be im- 
mediately benefited by the permission to appear on 
the stage. For many of them, their surroundings and 
company in the theatre are better and more wholesome 
than are their surroundings and company in their 
homes, or in the alleys where they spend their play time. 
They mostly come from the poorest classes, and they 
daily see and hear things much more harmful than they 
are likely to see and hear behind the scenes. They are 
generally most in demand about Christmas time, and 
the winter hours they spend in the theatres are a luxury 
of warmth and cheerfulness for them compared with 
the hours they spend in their homes and the streets. I 
do not think that anyone who has been behind the scenes 
at Drury Lane in the pantomime season, can doubt that 
the children there employed are on the whole substan- 



64 Patriotism and 

tially benefited by being allowed to appear on the stage. 
Every arrangement is made for their comfort and well- 
being, and for their meals and education between 
whiles. 

Of course, gi'eat care needs to be talceu in framing 
the safeguards and the restrictions placed on the chil- 
dren's appearance. But that they sliould be utterly de- 
barred from appearing in public is, I claim, hurtful on, 
the whole to their interests and welfare, as it is need- 
lessly vexatious to the public. It is urged that drunken, 
lazy, and unscrupulous ')arents often prey upon the 
earnings of their children. Surely the longer hours 
children are kept out of the company of such parents, 
the better for them. The child's earnings can be pro- 
tected from the parents where this is advisable, or per- 
haps in all cases, by enacting that whore the salary is 
in excess of daily keep and a little pocket-money, it 
shall bo invested in savings banks or war bonds for the 
after benefit of the child. This would in most cases be 
a lesson in thrift to the children, for they would soon 
take a pride in adding to their store. The business 
might be managed by a committee composed chiefly of 
those whose blind hatred of the theatre has led to the 
present degraded condition of our stage. If, instead 
of indulging their whimsy of holy hatred of the theatre, 
they would frankly recog-nize the main facts, we might 
move towards j« better state of things, both behind and 
in front of the curtain. The dominant facts of the 
situation are these : 

(1) The theatre, including music halls and variety 
houses, is sure to gi-ow in popularity and in influence. 

(2) It is impossible to check and diminish that popu- 
larity and influence by pecking and kicking at theatres 
with constant, meddling, vexatious interferences. 



Popular Education 65 

(3) There will always be abuses and evils connected 
with the theatre, especially in those houses that give an 
entertainment deliberately intended to appeal to foolish, 
frivolous, and sensual tastes. 

(4) These abuses and evils are aggravated and in- 
creased by the absence from our theatres of thoughtful 
people in search of sensible amusement, and by our neg- 
lect of serious comedy and drama, thus giving free scope 
for these houses to flourish and multiply in boundless 
prosperity. 

(5) The abuses and evils inseparably connected with 
theatres, and more especially with those of a certain 
class, are to be corrected, or very largely diminished, 
by the attendance of thoughtful people in search of sen- 
sible amusement, by their demand for a better, less dis- 
solute, and less imbecile form of national entertain- 
ment; and, chiefly, when the time and conditions shall 
be favourable, by the Government aid and countenance 
of a serious, national drama in a national theatre. 
Surely it will some day be apparent that the great mass 
of our people cannot be allowed to go on educating 
themselves during all their leisure hours in outrageous 
tomfoolery bordering on licentiousness and idiocy. 

I commend these facts and considerations to the ear- 
nest attention of that small, stubborn sect of earnest 
people who, by their earnest wrong-headedness and zeal- 
ous ignorance, are helping to multiply those very abuses 
and evils in the theatre which they are trying to abol- 
ish. Let them desist from pecking and kicking at the 
theatre. They cannot abolish it. They cannot shake its 
growing popularity. They may do something to make 
it less of a national disgrace and reproach. I suggest 
that, to begin with, these earnest people should busy 
themselves with the interests of the children of the 



66 Patriotism and 

theatre, with thoir protection from unscrupulous paiv 
ents, and with the careful audit and investment of their 
little savings. 

I am assuming, sir, that you will favourably consider 
the facts and arg-umeuts I have brought before you, and 
that you will modify the clause in your bill that forbids 
the employment of the children in the tlieatre, so far as 
to allow their appearance under careful safeguards. I 
have dwelt upon this matter at great length, because I 
wished to place you in possession of all the facts relat- 
ing to this very complicated question. It cannot be 
fairly viewed from the outside, or without a knowledge 
of all its bearings. Moreover, I am afraid that of all 
the many and far more important matters that I am 
trying to bring to your reluctant attention in this letter, 
this question is the only one that stands even a frac- 
tional chance of gaining your serious consideration, or 
of changing your policy. I appeal to you, sir, to allow 
children to take their place in what I hope will even- 
tually bo a worthy and operative English tlieatre, with 
a great and real, though silent, unobtrusive, indirect, 
educational influence for good on the mass of the Eng- 
lish people. I ask this because it tends on the whole to 
promote the welfare of the children themselves; while 
it also, most assuredly, tends to bring about a revival 
of Shakespeare and of serious modern drama. I leave 
the matter to your gi-ave and careful judgment. 

Upon the general matter, I think I may claim to 
have made out a case for further inquiry into tlie con- 
nexion between Popular Education and Popular 
Amusement. How is it that concurrently with the 
spread of Popular Education our national taste in the 
theatre has sunk to a level of mere banality, vulgarity, 
and bufl'oonery, to the general exclusion of all serioui 



Popular Education 67 

thought and wise enjoyment? Why is it that even re- 
fined and cultivated men and women have become large- 
ly infected with the popular taste, and shut off their 
intelligence when they enter a theatre? Does not the 
condition of the English theatre for the last fifteen 
years or more, indicate the same general carelessness of 
mental habit, and inability to think clearly and seri- 
ously about anything, which have brought upon us our 
present grave, national perils and disasters? May not 
Government wisely concern itself with the universal 
prevalence of a symptom which manifestly points either 
to some radical defect in our present system of Popu- 
lar Education, or to a gi-owing derangement and deca- 
dence of national thought and feeling which a sane and 
healthy Popular Education in the theatre might do 
something to correct? 

Again I contend that in no place can you more surely 
get an authentic revelation of the mental capacity, 
tastes, and habits of the people than in their popular 
theatres. You catch them there in mental and spiritual 
dishabille. The English stage has lately been a hideous 
exposure of our unsightly mental and spiritual naked- 
ness. 

I ask you, sir, to dwell for a moment on the compara- 
tive levels of Popular Education in the time of Eliza- 
beth and in our present time, as measured by the popu- 
lar entertainments in their respective theatres. There 
was plenty of brutal, obscene amusement in the days of 
Elizabeth. Doubtless there were displays which would 
have shocked the ears and eyes of many of the frequent- 
ers of our present popular theatres, though I question 
if those coarser entertainments of a coarser and more 
robust age, were so charged with insidious corruption 
and mental depravity as some of our present-day enter- 



68 Patriotism and 

tainments. But alongside those brutal exhibitions, 
there flourished the gi-eatest drama of all times. 

One might put up with a large amount of tawdry, 
extravagant display and witless vulgarity — treating it 
as mere holiday exuberance — if alongside it we had a 
vigorous, sane, modern drama that addressed itself to 
intelligent audiences. But the music-hall has usurped 
and devastated nearly all the evening leisure of our 
masses. It is our national school of taste and manners, 
and it clearly indicates the level and the drift of our 
Popular Education. 

Consider, sir, what is implied in the fact that the 
groundlings in Shakespeare's day, huddled and noisy 
and uncomfortable, could understand and follow with 
delight the lofty diction of his noblest passages, with 
their swelling torrents of passion and emotion ; his ricK 
native humour; his pride of patriotism; his deep re- 
searches into the human heart ; his massive portraiture 
of permanent types of character ; his bright wisdom and 
philosophy of life. To the average playgoer in the pii 
to-day, these things are tiresome and dreary, and for the 
most part even meaninglesa and unintelligible. If 
Shakespeare went out of his way to express his con- 
tempt for the groundlings of his time, how would he 
tax and exhaust his vocabulary of scorn to castigate our 
groundlings of to-day. It may be said that the populace 
of his time went to Shakespeare's and kindred plays 
because there was nothing much else to go to. This 
seems to show the advisability of declaring a close time 
in English theatres, when none but Shakespeare's plays 
would be allowed performance, as I have already sug- 
gested. My old carpenter spoke good English because 
he habitually read the Bible and the "Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress," and very little else came in his way. At any rate, 



Popular Education C9 

a very large number amongst Shakespeare's audiences 
must have enjoyed, and must have understood his plays, 
or they would not have been popular. You cannot drag 
people to see plays that do not amuse and interest them. 
How is it, sir, that the common people in Shakespeare's 
day had received an education that fitted them to enjoy 
and appreciate him as popular entertainment, while 
Popular Education to-day seems to fit them to enjoy lit- 
tle but stewed and clotted vulgarity and nonsense, and 
scarcely anything that demands from them a moment 
of serious thought or energy of attention? 

It is gratifying to learn that you have lately decreed 
that there shall be an annual Shakespeare day in all our 
schools. We may hope that this will lead to such a 
study and knowledge of his plays as will prepare our 
children to become frequent visitors to him in his nat- 
ural home — the theatre. We should not allow Shake- 
speare to become merely the parchment hobby of text 
correctors, and the convenient peg for scholars to hang 
a reputation upon. We should not even allow him to 
remain merely our dearest and most cherished library 
friend. Shakespeare should be our chief inspirer in the 
theatre ; our enthralling showman of the deep mysteries 
of human life; our guide through its dark circles, as 
Virgil was to Dante ; at one moment snatching us to the 
brink of shuddering precipes, and holding us breathless 
over roaring gulfs and torrents of passion and madness 
and despair; and at another roystering and carousing 
with us in a jolly tavern; sometimes, with all his ban- 
ners flying, and all his drums beating, and all his trum- 
pets blowing, marching with us to immortal fields of 
glorious battles in France; and again merrymaking 
with us at a village sheep-shearing, or chatting and jest- 
ing with us under the shades of Arden. He should be 



70 Patriotism and 

our easy, adaptable friend, fitting himself to all our 
moods; our stern counsellor; our grave adviser; our 
boon companion; our laughing philosopher — all these 
should Shakespeare be to us in his natural home, thti 
English theatre. All these Shakespeare has been to 
English playgoers in the past, and might again become. 
But we have kicked him out of his own royal domain, 
and in his place we have enthroned — what ? 

For dost thou know, oh Damon dear, 
This realm dismantled was 
Of Jove himself, and now reigns here 
A very very — Pajock. 

Ah, sir, do but see what our popular theatres have 
become under the ravages of Popular Education ! May 
I again respectfully urge upon you that the matter, in 
its serious implications, is one that calls for some 
searching inquiry from the Minister of Education? 

If you reply that this matter is one that falls within 
the province of the Home Office, I am aware that in its 
larger developments it remains to be dealt with by that 
department. And when the times are less troubled and 
anxious, I hope the Home Office may be brought to 
see the wisdom, nay the national necessity, of consid- 
ering it. At present, with other weightier concerns, it 
must be left in abeyance. But meantime, may not the 
Minister of Education be invited to lend a hand in 
sweeping away some of the worst abuses of the English 
Theatre, and in making it less of a national reproach 
and disgrace? 

I maintain that merely as an instrument of "general" 
education, Shakespeai-e is the greatest, wisest, and by 
far the cheapest schoolmaster you can appoint. Eor 
with some small and constant encouragement and out- 
lay — a mere drop in the bucket of your annual expendi- 



Popular Education 71 

tur© — the people, if rightly led, will themselves pay for 
his teaching with the money they are now wasting upon 
the foolish and often noisome trash that they call 
"amusement." Will you not assist, sir, in making 
Shakespeare popular in the only sphere where he will 
ever command a wide and compulsive influence upon 
the tastes, habits of thought, characters, and daily con- 
duct of the populace — the theatres of his native land? 
Feeling convinced of the great importance of this 
matter, and having an inside knowledge of it, I have 
tried to explore it thoroughly, and to put it before you 
in all its bearings, so that you may see how intimately 
it is woven with Popular Education in the web of our 
national life. Again, I leave it to your careful _and de- 
liberate judgment 



CHAPTER III 

(May — June 1918) 

PopuLAE Education and Politics befoee the War 

Political Dogma and Eeligioua Dogma — ^Impossibility of Draw- 
ing up indisputable codes for children — General Education a very 
devious compass — The question of transcendent importance from 
1890 onwards — Popular Education opposed to teaching future 
citizens their chief duty — Consequent immeasurable cost to the 
nation — Lack of vision and guidance — The unreturning wheel of 
fate — Germans teach us what Popular Education failed to teach 
us — Blindness of our politicians due to Popular Education — The 
housemaid's excuse, "It shan't happen again" — Where lay the 
fault? — Intellectual dishonesty the worst of mental ailments — 
Endemic at Westminster — Boy scouts movement more beneficial 
than school teaching — Intractibility of "young persons" — Cicero 
and Euclid the safest companions for them — Economic benefit 
of continuation classes — Rosy estimate of its amount — Not one 
hundredth of the national loss caused by neglect of Popular 
Education to teach our boys their first duty. 

T HAVE finished the task that I set before me when 
•*• I began this letter. I have examined some of the 
tendencies and results of our present system of Popular 
Education as they appear in the quality of much of tlie 
daily work that is being done by the people, and in the 
quality of the vast proportion of our popular evening 
amusements. But all tlu'ough my argument, I have 
been constantly reminded that, important as these mat- 
ters may be in themselves, they recede into a negligible 
background in presence of the life-and-death conflict 
which we are hourly waging before a drawn curtain 

72 



Popular Education 73 

that Hides from us unimaginable issues to all our na- 
tional endeavours and undertakings. 

I am painfully aware, sir, that I am making an 
altogether inconsiderate use of my privilege of address- 
ing you. But will you forgive me if I go on to trace 
the connexions of Popular Education with the main 
drift of political thought and action that has guided our 
nation during the past most critical twenty years, when 
we should have been preparing for this irrevocable de- 
cision of our fate? And may I also try to push for a 
few uncertain steps into the tangles and obscurity that 
will encompass this country after the war, so far as 
Popular Education may help us to find our way 
amongst them, or may only the more darkly involve us ? 

Obviously the Board of Education is not able to give 
our children a course of instruction in practical — that 
is, in party politics. Eor as you know, sir, there are 
virtually no practical politics in England outside party 
politics. It would be as difficult to draw up for our 
children a code of indisputable political dogma, as it 
has been found to draw up for them a code of indisputa- 
ble religious dogma. Yet these two subjects, more than 
all others, are those upon which it is of sovereign im- 
portance for our future citizens to be guided towards a 
sound judgment. Eor the right conduct of our daily 
lives depends upon our religious belief and practice, and 
the right conduct of the nation's affairs depends upon 
our political belief and practice. And we do not escape 
from our religious and political difficulties by wrapping 
them up in generalities and phrases, and making tempo- 
rary concessions to popular ignorance and passion. All 
political and religious difficulties that are so evaded, 
return upon us in a short time with multiplied clamours 
to be faced and fought out. ITow, more than ever in 



74 Patriotism and 

our history, we are called upon to find a sure reason 
for our beliefs and practice. And now more than ever 
we are wandering in confusion and indecision ahout 
many of the matters upon which a plain "Yes" or "No" 
is of necessity for our national existence. 

But upon most of the turbulent questions that are 
gathering in force to perplex and divide the nation in 
the coming years, you can give no authoritative instruc- 
tion to your scholars. Now, at this tremendous mo- 
ment, and at all others, when opposing sign-posts stand 
at the crossways of our nation's destiny, to point us to 
safety or to cheat us to destruction, you cannot issue 
a loud imperative order to your hosts of future citizens, 
"To the right!" or "To the left!" You may, indeed, 
give them a very devious jerky compass of "general" 
education, but you cannot tell them plainly that the 
main highway of the nation's safety runs to the north 
or to the south, to the east or to the west. For on many 
of the matters upon which it is, perhaps, life or death 
to get right leadership, one party of our politicians, as 
soon as the war is over, will be pressing headlong to the 
north, and another will be scrambling to the south, and 
the remainder will bo running about the country in bye 
lanes of their own choosing. 

You will claim that the "general" education you are 
giving your scholars in history, in economics, and in 
political science will guide them by and by to form a 
sound opinion upon each question of national impor- 
tance as it arises. 

Is that not refuted by our present experience ? What 
was the question of transcendant importance for every 
Englishman to consider and reconsider, and to form a 
right opinion upon, from the years 1890 onwards — the 
question upon whose solution then, his very daily bread 



Popular Education 75 

depends to-day, his whole resources, his life and the 
lives of those dearest to him, and the future of the Brit- 
ish Empire? Surely, in comparison with the question 
of whether he should be ready to defend his native land, 
there was no other question that was worth a careless 
toss of his mind. Other questions there were of the 
utmost importance in our internal economy, but till 
this was settled they were of mere parochial dimensions. 
For they were all dependent upon the right solution of 
this one question. 

I am sure you will be both indignant and amused at 
what seems like an attempt to Sf ddle the blame for the 
war upon our system of Popular Education. You will 
ask what the Board of Education had to do with the 
war, how it was concerned to foresee it, how it could 
have helped to prevent it, or sensibly to diminish its 
duration and the magnitude of its ravages. 

If you will bear with me, sir, I am searching for the 
foundations of Popular Education. I am trying to find 
out whether there are not one or two great fundamental 
rules and principles which must form the basis of any 
stable and durable system, in the same way that the 
sixth, seventh, and eighth commandments form the bar 
sis of any stable and durable system of law and civilized 
society. Dealing with our daily work, I tried to show 
that the first rule of all Popular Education is to teach 
every child to do his individual work thoroughly, hon- 
estly, and with all his might, and to train him betimes 
for that individual work. This governing rule should 
underlie all Popular Education. It is strange that 
after fifty years one should be able to announce it as 
something of a discovery. It is so obvious that it has 
been almost forgotten. I daresay educational experts 
are smiling at me. They will smile again, or perhaps 



76 Patriotism and 

bo very angry, when I say that another g'oveming rule 
or principl(? of l*<)j)iilar Kdiutiition slionld be to impress 
every boy wiiJi the idea that it is his duty to defend his 
country, and to prepare him so far that he may easily 
bo made fit for that duty. 

If this is scouted or contested, lot me claim no more 
than tliis for the moment, that had this duty been made 
a pai't of our system of Popular Education for the last 
generation, wo might possibly have been spared the 
war altogether; or, if that is unlikely, we should, with 
quite a comparativcily small outlay of treasure and sac- 
rifice of men, have gained a decisive and much earlier 
victory. It is improbable that a general European war 
could have been avoided, but at a moderate estinuito 
we could have won it at less than a third of our present 
costs of all kinds. The incalculable expenditure of 
money and resources, the sorrows and horrors that have 
no end, the insecurities and perils of the future, would 
have been vastly diminished and brought into an easily 
manageable compass, if only the simple rule of giving 
our eld(vr boys some preparation for the defence of their 
country had been adopted in past years. There can 
surely be no doubt of tliis, for we had the wealth, the 
command of the seas, the unbounded natural resources 
of our l<]m}>ire, and the nuitchloss strength and valour 
of that English manhood which is hourly showing itself 
invincible. We had it all in large easy surplus and un- 
challengeable supremacy. We needed but to hold our 
right hand ready for its defence, and wo could have 
made it sure for long tyclcs to come. And this wo could 
easily have done at less than a third of our present woe- 
ful costs of all kinds. 

Ilovvever mistaken and pernicious my proposal may 
bo in tlieory, who can doubt that if it had been put into 



Popular Education 77 

practice thirty years ago, it would have spared us more 
than two-thirds of tbo miseries and expense of tliis pres- 
ent war, with its never-ending roil of dead and wound- 
ed, and its threatening outlook of prolonged national 
poverty and aeini-hankruptcy. Tt may 1)0 a most vicious 
and reprehensible principle that I am advocating, but, 
put into active working a generation ago, its pregnant 
result would have been that at this hour, instead of 
waiting in a dreadful hush of expectancy for renewed 
unknown emergencies, sacrifices, and calamities, we 
should now be the peaceful citizens of a atrenglliened 
and unassailable British Empire, with all its borders 
secure, with all its impulses quickened, with all its ac- 
tivities enlarged, with its future pi'osperity assured, 
and offering with both hands a rich choice of happy des- 
tinies to its millions of sons. 

That would have been our position to-day if the 
defence of our country had been made a part of our 
"general" education a generation ago. What a roar of 
fury and anger would liav(! gon(^ up thcougb all the 
length and breadth of the land, if it had been projwsed 
to teach and enforce this first duty of citizenship! But, 
sir, this very obvious duty, and this very opprobrious 
doctrine are wbat we liave been teaching to every man 
and boy in the Empire for the last four years, by every 
mouth and every agency, in every paper, from ev(^ry 
pulpit, on every hoarding in every city. And we have 
had to teach it in all the scuffle of hurry, disorganiza- 
tion, alarm, and desjKM-ation. 

And at what a cost ! Would it not have been bettor 
to have made it a part of our scheme of "general" edu- 
cation twenty or tbii-ty years ago, to have taught it in 
no spirit of defiance or militarism, but as a n(!ceHsary 
insurance against irretrievable national disaster, with a 



78 Patriotism and 

wide view of our great responsibilities and our great 
possessions, with a calm determination to accept our 
responsibilities, and to defend our possessions? 

While I have been writing this letter to you, Eng- 
land has been throwing into the furnace of the great 
battle, like mere stubble and faggots upon a bonfire, 
hundreds of thousands of her sons, the vigour and prom- 
ise of her remaining manhood, many of them little more 
than boys who a few years ago were shouting in their 
playgrounds. There they have stood, those schoolboys 
of yesterday, waiting their turns to be sacrificed ; fight- 
ing, agonizing, dying in cheerful recklessness ; called to 
their fearful destiny by our political teachers and lead- 
ers and rulers of past years, who had ears but would 
not hear, and eyes but would not see. 

Kot from lack of bravery and valiancy of manhood, 
O dear, dear land, not from lack of devotion to thee 
and high-tuned self-sacrificing spirit, but from lack of 
vision, from lack of guidance, art thou to-day set about 
with dangers and uncertainties, staggering and batter- 
ing a dreadful path towards that still distant goal, 
drained of thy treasure, drained of thy heart's blood, 
but stronger than ever in reserves of steadfast endur- 
ance, and richer than ever in stores of deathless re- 
solve ! 

And with right vision, with right guidance, we could 
so easily have forestalled all these frightful commit- 
ments, and bought our national security at a fraction 
of our present debts and losses and sufferings. Some- 
times, on a still night, a quiver of the south-east wind 
brings to our straining ears a faint, distant thud, more 
like a pulse of the air than a sound, and we know that 
two or three minutes ago that mufiled pad in the silence 
was a roaring thunder crash in Flanders, which perhaps 



Popular Education 79 

laid desolate English homes, and left them in loneli- 
ness that will never h© comforted, and in sorrow that 
will never be assuaged. Ceaselessly, ceaselessly, with 
ever blazing lust and energy of destruction, those thun- 
der crashes have violated the air, and poisoned the 
earth, and beaten into the dust our dearest flesh and 
our fairest hopes. Ceaselessly, ceaselessly, with no re- 
gard for the hours and the seasons and the years, they 
have blasted out havoc and death. Their clamour is 
never quelled ; their hunger is never appeased. And it 
goes on. The mad, insatiate, remorseless engine goes 
on. Already the sum of its ruin and devastation is past 
all count, all picturing. It goes on. Who can dare 
to guess what infinite, unimaginable toll of sacrifice and 
suffering it may yet exact from us, and leave us to 
bear ? It goes on. 

And so easily in the bygone careless years, we might 
have paid the fractional price of redemption from its 
worst evils and miseries and losses. 

If by some touch of our finger upon the wheel of fate, 
some sleight of mind beyond any wonder of magic, we 
could now instantly arrest the long, blind, labouring 
march of those millions tramping towards anguish, mu- 
tilation, and nameless gi-aves ; ransom our kin from all 
the hazards of wounds and death; convoy them safely 
home, and set them busy about their cheerful custom- 
ary tasks of peace — If by some divine alchemy of heal- 
ing, we could make whole every tortured limb; unseal 
every blinded eye; raze out the written troubles from 
every distracted brain; build up every broken body in 
its former glad soundness and strength ; dismantle every 
hospital of its ghastly array, and give every inmate a 
full discharge and warranty of health — If we could re- 
lease all our despairing prisoners bowed down with 



80 Patriotisrr^ and 

misery, starvation, loathsome insult, and grinding toil 
and torment in that inhuman land; cancel their mar- 
tyrdoms, and give them again their birthright of native 
freedom — If we could cleanse our hearts of this gnaw- 
ing, clinging, unsleeping worm of suspense and ache 
and dread, and be once more at ease in our undarkened 
homes; if we could untie all the hands that are now 
slaving in the service of death and destruction, and put 
them to the uses and ministry of health and life ; if we 
could write off the heavy mortgages of our children's 
inheritance that wo have given to the extortionate fu- 
ture ; silence every alarm of war, and set straight all it^ 
confusions and disorders — If we could work this mir- 
ale of enfranchisement, not only in our own land, but 
in all our sister lands, in outraged Belgium and Ser- 
bia, in demented Russia, and in stricken, ravished 
France ; raise again the stones of her desecrated churches 
and ruined towns, and dress them in all their mellowed 
beauty and seductive grace; wipe away the bestial pol- 
lution of her soil, and plant her stark desolation with 
gardens and harvests and homesteads — If now, when 
the red May blossoms are falling on our English lawns, 
and the red blood drops are falling on the slopes of the 
Aisne, we could staunch every wound of the war, strike 
back the sharpened pendulum that swings its keen edge 
towards the entrails of France — If we could dissolve 
all the shuddering spectacle that stretches from the sand 
dunes of the N'orth Sea to the pools of the Adriatic; 
avert and frustrate the gi-eat doom that hangs over the 
nations; tear out these foul records from the book of 
history, and laugh at them as foolish tales of necro- 
mancy; roll into oblivion all the terrors, wrongs, cruel- 
ties, despairs, crimes, and abominations of these last 
years — If we could gather from the clods of Flanders 



Popular Education 81 

and Picardy tlie crumbling remains of our lost ones, and 
bid them leap to life, washed from all charnel taints, 
clasp them to us again, husband to wife, son to mother, 
lover to dear affianced bride ; the myriads of our slaugh- 
tered dead, redeemed from the grave, warm with throb- 
bing life in our arms, their steps once more upon the 
stairs, their faces at the daily table, their voices min- 
gling again with ours in homely talk and jest 

If we could annul it all! If we could awake from 
this nightmare, and find our fond imagining to be so- 
ber, happy truth ! If we could issue this fiat and see 
it accomplished before our eyes! 

But this power was largely in our hands a generation 
ago, if we had but used it. Not all of this beneficent 
witchcraft could have been wrought by the wisest na- 
tional foresight, the alivest and most patient states- 
manship, the most united discipline of patriotism in a 
populace educated to know and understand the things 
that make for its lasting welfare and peace. ISTot all of 
it, but surely the vastly gi-eater part. Surely our pres- 
ent national dangers and pei-plexities and losses could 
have been largely avoided, and we could at this moment 
have been in easy and tranquil possession of our van- 
ished treasures and sanctities and securities, if those 
who directed Popular and Political Education twenty 
years ago had recognized and upheld the principle that 
I am advocating ; if they had instilled into the mind of 
every boy that it is his duty to be ready to defend his 
country, and if they had given him some early rudi- 
mentary training. 

Why was it not done ? The need for it was plain be- 
fore our eyes, and crying into our ears. We have done 
it since with all our might and main. What our Popu- 
lar Educators would not teach us, the Germans have 



82 Patriotism and 

taught us; and with all their characteristic thorough- 
ness. Our lesson has cost us already some six or eight 
thousand millions of pounds, which may amount to dou- 
ble before we have finally dismissed our teachers. And 
we could have done it for ourselves at a fifth or a tenth 
of the cost! Can it be such a very vicious principle 
that saves us thousands of millions of pounds and the 
best manhood of our country — even if it only does us 
this service once in fifty years or so; even if its sover- 
eign importance only becomes apparent when we have 
recklessly flouted and denied it, or never becomes ap- 
parent at all to the multitude, because its very opera- 
tion prevents them from seeing the evils it guards them 
against ? 

Can it be such a very vicious principle ? Why did we 
not set about instructing our boys in their primary duty 
of defending their country in 1890 instead of 1914? 
Who laughs at me for making such a preposterous sug- 
gestion? The carnage and misery and ruin that are 
spread over Europe laugh at him. In those years we 
had in our hands the instrument of our deliverance 
from the worst of our present losses and calamities, if 
we had but perceived the truth of this first principle of 
iNational Education which I am afiirming. But that 
truth had lain so long neglected in the national soul 
that it had become bedridden. Even to-day many of 
our politicians are trying to legislate for the years 
before the war, are still living in a little world of party 
exigencies and opportunities. 

What is of importance for every one of us to remem- 
ber to-day, and this with no thought of useless re-crimi' 
nation, in no spirit of political partizanship, with no 
motive of political gain, but only with a fervent desire 
to find a body of men who will faithfully direct the 



Popular Education 83 

aims and energies of this nation to large and fruitful 
issues in a world where all will be changed, and where 
all our old political watchwords and catchwords will bo 
as idle as the wagging of gossips' tongues round a vil- 
lage pump a hundred years ago — what is of importance 
for eveiy one of us to remember for our guidance in that 
unknown future, is the fact that, for a generation be- 
fore the war, our politicians of all parties ignored the 
clearly visible portents and the clearly audible mutter- 
ings of the storm that was gathering to shake the earth ; 
ignored them, despised them, or mocked at them ; lulled 
the country into false security; minding only the po- 
litical accommodations of the hour; taking no heed 
of the great permanent laws of national welfare ; fatu- 
ous, flaccid, supine; more blind than Balaam, less wise 
than Balaam's ass, for the ass saw plainly enough the 
threatening angel of the Lord, standing but a few steps 
onward with a drawn sword in his hand. 

Our politicians went their way, pursuing the path to 
national disaster ; busily setting vote traps for an elec- 
torate muddled and dizzied and uproarious with sips 
and rinsings of "general" education; marketing in 
spurious prosperity; managing our great Empire as a 
factory for turning out social reforms at the shortest 
possible notice ; or as a quack medicine shop with a mi- 
raculous specific for every disease of the body politic; 
or as a universal emporium for distributing bagman's 
bliss and bank holiday liberty to everybody at the low- 
est possible price. 

Some of the social reforms were necessary, beneficial, 
urgent; many of them were the mere whimsies and 
topsy-turvies of fanatical cliques, or grabbings to get 
hold of the national counterpane which covers us all; 
pilferings of the stores of the commonwealth for the 



S4 Patriotism and 

benefit of a class or a private interest. All of the social 
reform legislation of the years before the war was of 
small importance or value compared with the necessity 
for preparing our citizens to defend their country. 

Is that denied? Will anyone name any half-dozen 
measures passed in those years, that saved or gained the 
country so much as a twentieth part of what we should 
have saved or gained by the timely instruction of our 
boyhood and manhood in the performance of this first 
duty to the State, and by shaping our national course 
with a provident foresight of the ever threatening and 
darkening future? 

But our politicians of both parties disregarded this 
first great national duty, put it aside; the influential 
majority of them denounced all suggestion of it as some- 
thing absurd, superfluous, barbarous, criminal, and — 
so terribly expensive. Expensive ! Besides all this, to 
train our boys in a sober, unoffending, but resolute 
patriotism, would have shown an unworthy suspicion 
and distrust of our good neighbour, Germany, not to 
be harboured in gentle, pacific, British breasts. 

Why did our politicians neglect and despise this first 
great national duty all through the years when, of all 
the years of our long history, its obligations were most 
plain and most imperative, when every movement that 
Germany made was a manifest declaration of her in- 
tent; when every consideration of prudent national 
economy, every admonition of the past, and every au- 
gury of the future incessantly called upon them to fulfil 
it ? Were they so destitute of natural sagacity as to be 
unable to see that our great Empire and all our posses- 
sions were vulnerable, and were unprotected on every 
side, and lay at the mercy of any chance outbreak of 
envy or malice? I will not rate their intelligence so 



Popular Education 85 

meanly as to think it. Were they, as the credulous 
populace now believe, the secret friends, the subsidized 
ftgents, or the blackmailed dependents of our enemy, 
conscious and active traitors to their country? I will 
not rate my own intelligence so meanly as to think it. 

There may be a few shady and disreputable transac- 
tions on the part of individuals which up to the pres- 
ent are unrevealed and unproved. But I am persuaded 
that the general body of English politicians were and 
are as irreprochable in matters of personal honour as 
any other class, and have made, and are ready to make, 
as great and willing sacrifices for the national safety. 

Why, then, in the generation before the war, were 
they so blind to our great permanent interests ; why, in 
this first duty of preparing and providing for our de- 
fence, were they so lax, so neglectful, so heedless of 
their high responsibilities ? Why were many influential 
members of them so loud and busy in leading the na- 
tion towards our present perils and disasters ? 

It may be urged that the nation itself was responsi- 
ble, since it put these politicians in power. But what 
kind of Political Education had the nation received? 
What were its leading principles and tenets? Whence 
were they derived? 

What part and influence had Popular Education in 
shaping the mould of political thought, and cutting the 
main channels of political action? Eor though it is 
plain, sir, that you cannot issue a set of political opin- 
ions to your scholars, I am sure you would agi'ee that 
the general policy of your office, its main principles and 
aims, must largely determine the political bias of the 
next generation, must prompt certain political im- 
pulses, and give direction and impetus to much of our 
forthcoming legislation. Indeed, I suppose you would 



86 Patriotism and 

claim that it is one of the chief objects of Popular 
Education to train a future electorate to demand wise 
legislation. 

Would you say that up till now, our system of Popu- 
lar Education has attained that primary object ? Would 
you say that it was wise legislation that left undefended 
all the sources of our national prosperity and well-be- 
ing ; all our store of accumulated wealtli ; all the wide, 
rich stretches of our scattered dominions ; left to hazard 
the daily bread and means of livelihood of every one 
of us; left all the jewels of our Empire displayed in 
manifest insecurity, and gave a careless general invita- 
tion to a cunning envious enemy to drop in and plunder 
us at any time convenient to him ? In view of our pres- 
ent situation, would you affirm that the greater part of 
our social, and much of our imperial legislation has 
not been misguided and chaotic ; heedful only of minor 
or imaginary necessities; blind to our real and immi- 
nent emergencies; inspired by no clear national pur- 
pose, except that of giving a good, easy time to every- 
body who would only vote hard and persistently for it ? 

Would you say that Popular Education was not 
therein concerned, was nowise accessory to the passing 
of that legislation, or accountable for its negligences and 
blindness ; that these matters lie outside its domain and 
sphere of action? Why, then, what a naive, impotent, 
blundering imposture does this same Popular Educa- 
tion proclaim itself to be, that teaches everybody alge- 
bra, and teaches nobody the first duty of patriotism that 
assures him his daily bread and butter ! 

But I am sure you will allow, nay, you will insist, 
that Popular Education has had, and must have increas- 
ing influence in guiding political thought and shaping 
political action; that its ministers, administrators, and 



Popular Education 87 

teachers, by the laws they frame, the principles they 
inculcate, the ideals they set before our children, and 
the notions they instil into their receptive minds, have 
a very real, if indirect, influence over the whole body 
of future legislation. 

May I, without impertinence, ask you whether, if you 
had been Minister of Education a generation ago, and 
had foreseen our present dangers and adversities, you 
would not have made it your first business to permeate 
every school in England with an enlightened, resolute 
patriotism, and to impress every boy with the urgent 
necessity of holding himself ready to defend his coun- 
try when the dreadful hour should strike? Am I 
wrong in supposing that you would have considered 
this matter of more importance than continuation class- 
es, that you would have put it into the forefront of the 
legislation you introduced, and into practice through- 
out the kingdom ? 

It may be urged that all that is past and done with, 
and not now worth our argument and speculation. The 
millennium is dawning, and the unfortunate oversight 
of our politicians is amply atoned for by the same 
comforting assurance that the housemaid gives when she 
has broken the priceless china vase that gold caimot 
replace — ''It shan't happen again." 

I will deal with that fallacious post-mortem excuse 
by and by. 

Meantime, may I bring to remembrance the fact that 
Popular Education, during those blind and nugatory 
years, was conceived and administered in a spirit of an- 
tagonism to any preparation of our boys for what is to- 
day the whole task and business of their lives? The 
general aims and tendencies of Popular Education, all 
its associations and affinities were opposed to giving 



88 Patriotism and 

them any instruction in what was soon to he their most 
pressing employment, demanding all their energy and 
intelligence. There was not merely neglect and indif- 
ference to any such teaching and preparation; there 
was not merely passive resistance; there was incessant 
and active denunciation of it as something wholly su- 
perfluous, foolish, demoralizing, hrutal, evil, and ruin- 
ous to the finances of the country. It would scarcely be 
an exaggeration to say that, in the last generation, the 
great majority of our hoys and young men were indus- 
triously educated not to defend their country. 

Where lay the fault ? I will not be so vain and con- 
ceited as to imagine that all our ministers and political 
leaders, deeply read in the lessons of history as most of 
them were, trained and experienced in statecraft, with 
full sources of information at their command — I will 
not flatter myself that they were less discerning, less 
able to form an estimate of the future necessities and 
obligations of the nation, than a casual observer and 
etander-by from politics like myself. How, then, was 
it that tiirough all those years they remained with 
sealed eyes and ears; nay, they shut their eyes and 
plugged their ears; incurably afilicted with Falstaff's 
disease, a kind of sleeping in the blood, a kind of deaf- 
ness, the disease of not listening, the malady of not 
marking ? 

Was it not that Popular Education was leavening and 
shaping political thought and action, and directing the 
main course of legislation, not towards the wise, large 
measures which events have proved were urgent and 
vital for the safety of the nation, and for its ultimate 
well-being and prosperity, but towards measures of class 
and social re-arrangement that promised some immedi- 
ate benefit to some section of the new electorate, and 



Popular Education 89 

secured office and party advantage to the politicians who 
promoted them? 

In the eighties after the Eeform Bill there arose the 
cry that we must educate our new masters. What really 
happened was that our new masters educated us. So 
far as Popular Education had any influence on legisr 
lation — and it cannot be denied that there was in- 
creasing action and reaction between Popular Educa- 
tion and politics — so far it obscured the vision of our 
statesmen in foreign affairs, and corrupted their intel- 
lectual honesty in domestic affairs. 

If a man drugs me with ether, and takes from me 
my watch, he knows he has robbed me, and, in his heart, 
he probably calls himself a thief. But if, in some 
greatly involved matter of politics, a man drugs me with 
the fumes of his words and his whimsies, and takes 
from me my power of right judgment, he doesn't know 
that he has robbed me, and he probably calls himself a 
Social Reformer. Very likely, before drugging me, he 
has carefully and systematically drugged himself, and 
then, if it is to our personal or class interest to be de- 
ceived, we go on drugging each other, and we form a 
caucus to drug all our neighbours. 

And by and by a monstrous bill comes in for the 
State to pay. 

Was there not gi'eat and widely-spread intellectual 
dishonesty amongst our politicians in the years before 
the war ? And was not much of it due to the pressure 
from an electorate whom Popular Education, by its de- 
clared aims and policy, had encouraged to vote, not for 
the ultimate welfare and safety of the State, but for 
what any scrap majority conceived to be their own pal- 
pable immediate personal interests? In the light of 
our present experience and knowledge, it seems an ill- 



90 Patriotism and 

timed jest, a cruel irony to remind the great body of 
voters that they were blindly and obstinately opposed to 
any national teaching of the first duty of citizenship; 
that they made it impossible for our politicians to pro- 
vide anything approaching the necessary means for the 
defence of the Empire. 

The politicians kept in office. I do not say that the 
intellectual dishonesty that allowed them to remain 
there was conscious and deliberate. We rarely analyse 
our motives very closely when a searching examination 
of them would disturb our interests or confound our 
whimsies. 

Of all the mental ailments that afflict our race, intel- 
lectual dishonesty is the most prevalent, the most read- 
ily infectious, the most obscure in its multiple origins, 
the hardest to diagnose correctly, the most subtle in its 
workings, the most disastrous in its ravages. We are 
all of us easily susceptible to it; many of us, like the 
"carriers" of typhoid, go through life sowing its germs 
broadcast, without even suspecting that it is in our sysr 
tem, and that we are spreading the plague. 

Was not this indefinable malady very rife in the 
House of Commons during the years before the wai*? 
Is it not endemic in the precincts of Westminster ? And 
was it not largely accountable for the blindness that 
closed the eyes of our politicians to the shadow of the 
coming doom, and to the necessity of preparing a shel- 
ter from it. Doubtless this intellectual dishonesty was 
mainly unconscious. Assuredly, many of our politi- 
cians were free from it altogether. Some of them, in- 
deed, if wholly mistaken, were nobly and generously 
mistaken. And of the others, let us charitably suppose, 
that in effectively working their party machines to 
bring all these horrors upon us, to cut off our best 



Popular Education 91 

manhood, to saddle the State with an unhearahle burden 
of debt for generations, and to drag the Empire and 
European civiliation into jeopardy — let us charitably 
suppose that in working their party machines to these 
ends, they were actuated by the noblest and purest mo- 
tives, and were genuinely convinced that they were 
striving their utmost for the welfare of the country. 

However we may allot the blame for our present situ- 
ation, it is plain that the sum of credit we give to the 
honesty and faithfulness of the politicians who were in 
power, we must debit from their foresight, sagacity, 
and statesmanship. And the sum of credit we give to 
their foresight, sagacity, and statesmanship, we must 
debit from their honesty and faithfulness. Had I been 
a responsible minister in any of the recent govern- 
ments, I think I could never meet one of those crippled 
wrecks in blue that make England a vast hospital, with- 
out the acccusing thought, "Perhaps I might have saved 
that man." 

I hear you asking, with natural irritation, "What has 
all this to do with Popular Education? Do I ascribe 
to it all the evils that have visited this planet since the 
lapse of Eve ?" 

N^o, sir, I am now charging it with one omission 
only. But that omission was so fatal in its conse- 
quences, that it cancels into less than nothingness all 
the benefactions we have received from it. I mean the 
omission to teach our boys what every one of them 
would be called upon to practise at the hourly risk of his 
life; what it was most urgent for their own sakes, and 
most imperative for the welfare of the State for them 
to learn. I will claim that the Boy Scouts movement 
has had a higher influence on the boys of England than 
the teaching they have received in the national schools; 



92 Patriotism and 

and that in respect of building up their characters in all 
essentials of manhood, it has been of far more real 
value to the country. 

In the matter of national finance, this cardinal omis- 
sion of Popular Education has been ruinous beyond all 
power of computation. We are now well within sight 
of a N'ational Debt of some ten thousand millions of 
pounds. It is the confessed aim of your new Educa- 
tion Bill to render an economic service to the State by 
indiscriminately forcing some items of "general" edu- 
cation upon everybody under the age of eighteen, how- 
ever unpalatable it may be to the majority of them, 
however foreign to their tastes, aptitudes, and life vo- 
cation. Perhaps those whom your Bill, categorically, 
but a little ungallantly, describes as "young persons," 
may be found to have wills of their own in this matter, 
and to develop unsuspected powers of evasion. The 
"young person" from sixteen to eighteen is not a very 
tractable creature, and is fertile in devices of escape 
from wholesome instruction and salutary restraint. I 
had only half a dozen of them on my hands; you will 
have many millions. I hope, sir, your perplexities in 
dealing with them may not be multiplied in strict pro- 
portion to my own. 

Setting aside any economic benefit that your Bill 
may, or may not, confei* upon the nation, I readily al- 
low that "young persons" of sixteen to eighteen would 
often be far better employed in the study of abstract 
problems of science, mathematics, or philosophy, even 
if they do not understand them, than in giving their 
leisure to the very concrete personal matters that are 
apt to allure and absorb the thoughts at that impression- 
able age. Cicero or Euclid is a much safer and more 
desirable companion for recalcitrant adolescence, than 



Popular Education 93 

the average "young person" of the opposite sex who 
is employed over the way, or picked up in an evening 
walk. Alas, that to the "young person" they should 
he less seductive ! This is a subject upon which I will 
abstain from distressing myself. With some feeling of 
relief, I leave it unreservedly in your hands to settle 
with the "young persons" themselves. 

Returning to the economic question, when you say 
that "no country in the long run suffers an economic 
injury from an improvement in the general education 
of its population," I understand you to mean, in this 
instance, that by forcibly bestowing information about 
Cicero, and other packets of general knowledge upon 
all "young persons" up to the age of eighteen, you ex- 
pect to bring a substantial profit to our empty ex- 
chequer. You will admit that the process is somewhat 
roundabout in its method, and somewhat obscure in 
its working, and that its benefits cannot be exactly es- 
timated. Some of us are a little inquisitive about the 
precise amount, and a little sceptical as to which side 
of the national ledger the balance may finally have to 
be placed. But whatever our doubts, I am sure there 
is no taxpayer in the kingdom who does not most fer- 
vently pray that your most sanguine expectations may 
be surpassed; and who, if they are merely realized to 
some small extent, will not overwhelm you with grati- 
tude and praise. 

Indeed, so universal is the desire for your success, 
and so confident the belief that it is assured, that already 
the papers have showered columns of glowing praise 
upon your scheme. The chorus of their applause was 
so hearty, and their enthusiasm so spontaneous and 
jubilant, that I thought at first I must be reading the 
notices of a new revue at one of our popular variety 



94 Patriotism and 

theatres. For I know of no other matter of general 
civic interest, that in our present circumstances could 
kindle such warm and lively sympathy and national 
congratulation. 

Nor, in respect of any pecuniary benefactions that 
your bill may distribute, shall you find a more eager 
or grateful recipient than myself. ISTo stupid, obstinate 
preference for my own opinion, shall stand in tlio way 
of my changing it, the moment I get some reasonably 
trustworthy evidence that my income tax has been re- 
duced a penny in the pound, by the compulsory attend- 
ance of all "young persons" at your continuation classes. 
In fact, when that moment comes, I shall be found im- 
ploring you, with all the zeal of a new convert, to raise 
the ago to forty at the least. I hope this may show you 
how willing, nay anxious, I am to be convinced of the 
economic wisdom of this clause in your bill. 

I am aware, sir, that you cannot disentangle from our 
general revenue, the amount that will flow into the ex- 
chequer from your detention of all "young persons" 
in class rooms until they are eighteen. I will not ask 
you to give us even an approximate estimate of this 
golden largesse to the people. But you would be able 
to say roughly whether it will be a mere dribble of a 
few millions, or a soaking rain of affluence upon a bare 
and thirsty land. Probably you would assess it in your 
own mind, very loosely and indefinitely, at something 
between these two extremes. Let us assess it in our 
most sanguine, most extravagant mood. As our valua- 
tion cannot be falsified, let us deal generously with an 
impoverished nation. Let us nurse the wildest hopes; 
let us fondle the rosiest credulities. What good round 
sum shall wo say will accrue to the State from forcibly 
instructing all "young persons" up to eighteen, in mat- 



Papular Education 95 

ters that to the great majority of them can have no 
concern with their daily work and activities? Let us 
put it at some figure higher than the highest possi- 
bility. 

Will it then he one fifth, one tenth, one hundredth of 
the sum that the nation has squandered, or will have 
to squander, because it did not, in years gone by, in- 
struct all male "young persons" in the first duty of 
citizenship, and train them to be ready to defend their 
country ? 

Forgive me, sir, if I have roused your indignation 
by calling upon you to make such a calculation. You 
will say that there is no means of establishing an equa- 
tion of circumstances, contingencies, and results. And, 
further, granted that a rigid comparison could be made, 
and an exact balance struck, it could serve no useful 
purpose, and would be a mere irritating reminder of 
our past folly and blindness. Why, then, do I, like a 
nagging shrew, continue to harp upon yesterday's 
faults and mistakes in the household? They are past 
and done with, and the whole family is hard at work, 
trying to repair them. Those who committed them and 
caused the general upset and damage, are now, many 
of them, toiling night and day to ward off further de- 
struction, and to make our home tidy and fit to live in 
once more. 

I gladly acknowledge that. I am sensible of their 
sleepless work and care, and am deepl}^ grateful to them ; 
boundlessly grateful and beggared of thanks to the tire- 
less, indomitable steward and guardian of our despoiled 
estate, who with every energy of brain and fervent soul 
and will addressed to his stupendous task, bearing a 
burden more than mortal shoulders are able to bear, is 
labouring to bring us out of this chaos and wreckage. 



CHAPTER IV 

{July— August 1918) 
A League of Nations 

Legislating for the inillennixira — The prophet Micah beats 
Bwords into ploughshares — The prophet Joel counters him and 
beats ploughshares into swords — War and Design in Nature — 
An automatic peace-machine — The philanthropist in Laputa and 
his safety dustbin — Possible material profit from war— Greater 
certainty of spiritual profit — Difficulties of constitution of League 
— The master fact for our statesmen to remember — Germany's 
future attitude towards Britain — Do we not know this nation? — ■ 
The League of Nations a fruitful field for German intrigue — The 
servant girl and the fair young man — League of Nations a fu- 
tility or a danger — Improbability of all the nations being wise 
for all of the time — Dark anarchic forces gathering on the hori- 
zon — Governing the world by a Committee — The war after the 
war — Victories of Peace compared with Victories of war — Eng- 
lish and American commercial practices — A League of Nations, 
sooner or later, causes war — Approaching ground swell after this 
tempest — Balancing alternations of peace and war through all 
history — A soldier the final custodian of peace — By recogniz- 
ing this we avoid or shorten war — Immediate and remote dan- 
gers of a League of Nations considered — Hecate and false se- 
curitj^ — War and the dark backward and abysm of Time — War 
and the dark forward and abysm of time — Canute and the fram- 
ers of a League of Nations — American delay in entering the war 
— American mothers and the war trumpets of Europe — Amer- 
ica's unique and fortunate position — Speculation on future of 
American civilization — Four possible future states of world civi- 
lization — The earth littered with combustile matter — The two 
sign-posts. 

WHY, then, dwell upon the past ? And especially 
upon this unfortunate oversight of our poli- 
ticians in not preparing for the war ? Surely the con- 

96 



Popular Education 97, 

templation and discussion of that national error of 
judgment can offer us no lesson or warning for the fu- 
ture; for, as soon as peace is signed, the millennium 
will dawn by the unanimous decree of a League of Na- 
tions. Let us make haste to legislate for the millen- 
nium. Let us, victims of miseries and mistakes through 
all these troublous chapters of our history, take a peep 
at the end of the book and find it written on the glow- 
ing last page that we shall live happily ever after- 
wards. How like we are to the readers of a tale, or 
the sitters at a play! We insist that the author shall 
give us a happy ending or we will not buy his book. But 
the Author of the book of our fate cares nothing for 
popular approbation and applause. He writes the 
plainest, sternest truths and makes no concession to 
the public taste for honied sentiment and luxurious 
dreams. For every word He writes is assured of final 
universal circulation. Sooner or later He forces us 
to buy every volume He issues; and always at a price 
that leaps upward, the longer we delay. 

Some natural hopes we must needs indulge for very 
pity of our present state; some fairy pageantry oi 
beatitude we must needs paint upon the unsubstantial 
cloud fleece of the future, or we should faint and die 
on this dark, thorny, toilsome road. Who is there that, 
casting one shuddering look on this perverted world to- 
day, does not make one with all its despairing, tortured, 
starving peoples, and throwing himself into the vast, 
kneeling assembly, cry out with them, "An oath ! An 
oath! We have an oath in heaven! Witness, ye ever 
burning lights above ! Never, to the end of time, shall 
this mad, blundering, accursed murderer, War, again 
work havoc and ruin upon our earth !" 

That cry has gone up to heaven before. That vow 



98 Patriotism and 

has often been registered by acclaiming mankind, in 
their dire agony of body and soul. Men have always 
been convinced of the advantages of peace, and the 
miseries and cruelties of v/ar. The prophet Micah, 
with all the zeal of our modern Pacifists, and in choicer 
diction, announced a time when swords should be 
beaten into ploughshares, and spears into pruning-hooks. 
Unfortunately the prophet Micah was countered by the 
prophet Joel, who started a movement for beating 
ploughshares into swords, and pruning-hooks into spears. 
Our own Pacifists, if history, or facts, or aught that per- 
tains to reason could teach them, might notice that 
these opposing movements have continued ever since, 
with balancing alternations and constant intermittent 
recurrence. Did not Voltaire, with his superb irony, 
expose to his countrymen the miseries and absurdities 
and senseless horrors of war ? Yet in the next genera- 
tion they were following ITapoleon, and laying waste 
all Europe, having in the meantime proclaimed uni- 
versal brotherhood, and chopped off each other's heads. 
Again our Pacifists may note that chopping off heads 
and cutting throats is the inevitable sequel to proclaim- 
ing universal brotherhood. And so on till 1851, when 
it was fondly imagined that wars would be caused to 
cease by building in Hyde Park, what Ruskin called a 
large cucumber frame between two chimneys, and dis- 
playing therein a quantity of Manchester and other 
wares. 

If there is any Design in this universal web of hu- 
man things. War has hitherto been a main and inextric- 
able part of that Design. Its crimson threads run 
through all the tapestry of history, though often they 
are hidden from us under the smiling panorama of 
peace that is displayed. The gi-eat loom of Time has 



Popular Education 9Q 

gone on weaving its variegated, complicated pattern 
of human affairs for the countless thousands of years 
since man began to climb upwards from the ape, but 
the dreadful red figure has never long been absent from 
the foreground of the scene. Punctually at the ap- 
pointed hour — it may be at the end of ten, or twenty, 
or forty years — punctually the great loom has begun 
again to weave the figure of the terrible red monster, 
and he has emerged; in his right hand a sword, and 
his left hand a cup of unendurable agonies and cruel- 
ties and sorrows. 

We, drinking from that cup, cry out against its bit- 
terness. We try to push it from us. The terrible 
red monster grips us, forces it through our teeth, as 
deep as to our throats, makes us swallow its very dregs. 
We register our vehement vow that it shall never again 
be offered to our lips, or to the lips of our children. 
We will vote against it at the next election. Does not 
an undeciphered tablet brought from the ruins of As- 
syria, record that at the general election which took 
place when N^oah was building his ark, the electorate of 
that day voted unanimously against the deluge? We 
will certainly vote against this greater, fouler evil at 
the next election, and at every election for the next fifty 
years. 

Unhasting, unresting, the great loom of Time is al- 
ready beginning to weave the future history of the 
coming generations of men. The crimson threads that 
now stretch all across the frame, dyed deep in the blood 
of the nations, will disappear, and embed themselves 
in a warp and woof of rejoicing landscapes, peopled 
with olive gatherers and reapers of corn. Having 
served His purpose in His unfathomable Design, may 
not those crimson threads, when they return to the 



100 Patriotism and 

hands of the Weaver, be then for ever dipped in soft 
dove tints and restful hues of peace, never again to 
be vroven into the monstrous lineaments of war ? 

Who does not hope for it ? Who would not further it ? 

It was a pleasing medieval superstition that man- 
drakes, torn shrieking from the treacherous soil that 
had engendered them, after they had been propitiated 
by soothing rites, ceased to be the couriers of evil, and 
became the wise, familiar spirits and loving oracles of 
the household then enshrined them. So may we pro- 
pitiate the mandrakes that we have torn from this mur- 
der pit of war, conjuring away their attributes of hell, 
and transforming them into the guardians and coun- 
sellors of the nations through long generations of uni- 
versal peace! 

Who does not hope for it ? Who would not further it ? 

He would be a bold and foolish man who should de- 
clare that the recurrent dream of the ages will not 
at last come true after this war; that the weapons of 
slaughter, when they drop from our hands, will not 
henceforth be packed away in the museum of history, 
nevermore to be used for the torture and destruction of 
mankind, but only to be shown as curiosities and an- 
tique relics in the holiday times to come. Surely, if 
ever men will learn to avoid war, now is the accep- 
table moment ; surely if ever they can devise some cun- 
ning interlocking machine that will automatically deal 
out perpetual peace to the nations, now is the time to 
fashion it. We are being carried towards a new civi- 
lization. Who shall say what may, or may not, be 
possible amidst new forces that we cannot estimate, 
and in new conditions that we cannot realize ? It may 
be found possible to construct an automatic peace ma- 
chine, and it may be found possible to get it to work, 



Popular Education 101 

at any rate for a time. The necessity for it is so ob- 
vious and so pressing, that we can but watch with all 
sympathy and hope, the efforts of those who are so 
industriously beginning to put its parts together; we 
can but wish them success with all our hearts. 

But how long is it likely to work? That all the 
statesmen of all the nations will have to stand by, and 
check and regulate its every movement, nobody doubts. 
That it will need incessant mending and tinkering, no- 
body doubts. That all the statesmen of all the na- 
tions will have to repair it in harmonious co-operation, 
and adjust its intricate action to meet the varying needs 
and interests and susceptibilities of all the countries 
under the sun, nobody doubts. Is it not almost certain 
that, within the period of a generation or even less, 
the machine will get out of order and become unman- 
ageable, and this at some moment when all the states- 
men are busy oiling and mending it, with their fingers 
in its complicated cogs? And will not the statesmen 
be drawn into its furious revolutions, while the un- 
ruly irresponsible machine clatters itself to destruction, 
and mangles and wrecks everything around it? 

Something like this has happened to the .peace ma- 
chine which the Russian democracy constructed upon 
the fall of the Czar. Why should we think that a 
larger, more complicated machine, constructed upon 
what are virtually and fundamentally the same prin- 
ciples of action, will not, sooner or later, grind out 
the same results to its inventors and its victims? 

The last time I was in Laputa, I met there a phil- 
anthropist, who had a most engaging scheme for rid- 
ding the world of all the inconveniences, nuisances, 
and diseases attendant upon the universal prevalence of 
dust. His quite unassailable argument was, that if 



102 Patriotism and 

we could once and finally collect all the dust in the 
world, and put it into a large safe and lock it up, we 
ahould henceforth have a quite tidy, wholesome, pleas- 
ant earth to live upon; that we should save half our 
expenses on housemaids, and all our expenses on dust- 
men and water-carts; that we should be free from un- 
pleasant smells, and rid ourselves of flies; and that 
all the filth and dirt diseases would be eradicated. As 
he enlarged upon the great and manifest blessings that 
his scheme would confer upon humanity, I caught his 
enthusiasm, and heartily wished him all possible suc- 
cess. He thanked me, and said that he had already 
built one safe, and had stored in it a large heap of 
dust, when he found out that he had miscalculated 
the total quantity of dust that tliere was in the world ; 
moreover, some evil-disposed persons had bored a hole 
in his safe, and caused a leakage. However, he would 
guard against all such error and malice in the future. 
When I left Lagado, he was busy planning an uncol- 
lapsible, impregnable safe, of dimensions and design 
suitable to the magnificence of his idea. 

Now if we could but sweep up all the poisonous dust 
and germ-laden filth of greed, hate, intrigue, pride, 
rivalry, selfishness, discontent, envy, rancour, stupidity, 
jealousy, and ambition that lie littering amongst the 
nations, and that in times past have bred and festered 
into war — if we could collect it all into one heap and 
put it into a large safe, and call it "A League of !N"a- 
tions" — Ah, if we could ! 

Let us for the time shirk all responsibility for the 
caprices of future events. Let us cast about, and try 
to get some anchorage, not amongst the clouds, but on 
the hard bed rock of reality. Let us get a tight grip 
of unchallengeable facts, and make them surety for 



Popular Education 103 

our national aims and efforts. In all the bewilder- 
ment and confusion of our ptresent hopes and en- 
deavours, what are the main things we may be sure 
about and build upon ? 

We may be sure that the fundamental instincts and 
passions of humanity will not change, until man be- 
comes a creature of a genus so unlike ourselves, that 
his affairs and his destiny can be no concern of ours. 
But that day is very far distant. We have certainly 
risen from a race of crude lemur-like animals. We 
are certainly groping and agonizing upwards from the 
brute. But how slowly and how obliquely ! We may be 
sure that for centuries to come, the masses of mankind 
will be swayed and moved and whirled about by the 
same impulses, instincts, and passions that have moved 
them for centuries in the past. And as the interests of 
individual nations are always partly in conflict and 
partly in collusion, it is improbable to the last degree 
that any nation will, for any great length of time, 
be able to pursue any clear policy that it has marked 
out for itself. The nations and masses of men will, 
as in the past, be driven along roads they have not 
chosen, to goals they have not fixed or foreseen. Man 
will never divine the strategy of ^Nature. Only rarely 
and dimly can he follow her tactics, and advance his 
positions a few yards forward. Even then, though he 
is not aware of it, he is still fulfilling her strategy. 

(I am sure, sir, that you are asking with increasing 
irritation, what has all this to do with Popular Educa- 
tion and your Education Bill. I own that I seem to be 
wandering away from the high road of my argument 
in obscure and devious by-lanes. Bear with me, sir, 
a little longer. I am making for a fixed point. I will 
meet you at the top of the hill, yonder, where the op- 



104 Patriotism and 

posing signposts stand, and where the two ways part.) 
It will be urged that in 'this matter of war, the in- 
terests of the nations do not conflict; that it is very 
plainly to the advantage of them ^all and severally, to 
abolish it now and for ever from the planet. 

Can we be sure even of that, self-evident though it 
appears to be on the surface ? Undoubtedly it is to the 
immediate economic interest of the nations generally, 
to abstain from killing each other's citizens and wreck- 
ing each other's property. But can we say that in- 
dividual nations have not often profited very largely 
in a material sense, and also in a spiritual sense, from 
a successful war ? If, during the last four years, the 
scales which have so often hung tremulously balanced 
midway between heaven and hell, which at this moment 
hang in their last perilous vacillating poise, if those 
scales by the addition of some small makeweight thrown 
in by malignant circumstance, had once dipped in fa- 
tal decision against us, can we say that Germany would 
not have gained an enormous booty of wealth, terri- 
tory, power, influence, and future prosperity? That 
the Germans would not henceforth have been the slave- 
owners of us dispossessed Englishmen, living easily in 
our heritage, and fattening upon the sweated toil of 
our outcast children? Nine thousand million pounds 
is the sum which a German statesman in to-day's paper 
is calling upon his Government to claim from Eng- 
land, besides large slices of the continents, and vam- 
pire economic extortions. A cruel price to pay for 
the neglect of our Popular Educators in the last genera- 
tion to teach our boys the first duty of citizenship! A 
price impossible for the Germans now to exact. 

Is it quite impossible? How often in the last four 
years, have there been moments when a feather's weight 



Popular Education 105 

thrown in the scale against us, would have sent our 
scale to kick the beam, and Mene^ Mene, Tekel^ 
Upharsin would have been written on the gravestone 
of England! And if some crooked jolt of mischance 
should even now turn the scales against us, will not 
some such ruinous bill be sent in for us to pay ? What- 
ever economic benefit your system of general education 
may endow the nation withal, it will be small dust in 
the balance compared with that staggering, incalculable 
deficit. And will you not then, sir, be inclined to re- 
vise your dictum, and make it read thus : "^o country 
in the long run suffers an economic injury by training 
its boys to be ready to defend it, and by making this 
training a part of their general education" ? 

But alas, sir, if some blind blow out of the dark should 
yet descend upon us, and disable us in this ever fluc- 
tuating conflict, it will not be you, but the Germans 
who in five years' time will be superintending English 
education, and drawing up the schedule of our lessons. 
Bitter and ruthless will be their instruction; severe and 
prolonged beyond all our power of endurance will be 
their continuation classes. Happily there is every 
reason to hope that we shall remain under your milder, 
less expensive system of Popular Education. 

But if we cannot deny that individual nations have 
often profited materially by war, still less can we deny 
that individual nations have often profited spiritually 
by war. Does not a righteous war almost certainly 
bring spiritual enlargement and enlightenment and en- 
franchisement to the nation that submits to its iron 
discipline, and offers its purifying sacrifices ? To deny 
this is to black out from history many of its most in- 
spiring pages ; it is to sanctify oppression and tyranny, 
and to defame the heroic peoples who have hazarded 



106 Patriotism and 

all and suffered all for the deliverance of their land, 
and the freedom of their souls. To deny that a righ- 
teous war brings spiritual gain, is to pour contempt upon 
all the exaltations and sacrifices whei-eby we have proved 
ourselves and saved ourselves during the last four 
years; upon all that bands us together in our uncon- 
querable resolve; upon all that encourages us in these 
fateful hours to affirm with our blood the immutable 
conviction of our race, that when evil is triumphant 
men must needs die to overcome it. 

But it is claimed that this is the last time in the 
history of the world when evil will be triumphant, and 
when men will be called upon to give their lives in re- 
sistance to it. The Germans are a race apart, a people 
apart. When once they are vanquished, it is claimed 
that no nation will ever arise in the future to tyrannize 
and devastate the earth. Any little differences of opin- 
ion, of rivalries, or covetings, or selfish aims that may 
spring up amongst the peoples in the future, will be 
easily charmed away by a vote of the League of Na- 
tions. 

Is each nation to have equal voting power? It is 
manifestly unfair, and will probably be found to be 
unworkable. Is each nation to have voting power in 
proportion to its population? Again, it is manifestly 
unfair, and will make the small nations of little or no 
account. Is each nation to have voting power accord- 
ing to the armament it places at the disposal of the 
League? Who is to allot the size and functions of 
each individual armament? To include or to exclude 
Germany seems to be equally undesirable, and equally 
obstructive to the safe and honest working of the League. 
To the nations whom she has pillaged and devastated 
and murdered, Germany will for a generation be as in- 



Popular Education 107 

tolerable as a friend at the council table, as she has 
been unscrupulous as an enemy in the field. 

The constitution of the League is beset with diffi- 
culties and provocations to dissension. Still the long- 
ing for peace is so urgent and so universal, that it will 
doubtless be found possible to make the necessary com- 
promises, and to establish it in some form that will 
give it a chance of temporary success. Indeed the 
longing for peace is so strong and insistent that it will 
probably ensure its own fulfilment for many years to 
come. 

Setting aside the possibility of a universal class war, 
which would obliterate national boundaries, destroy 
national understandings, and plunge the world into 
endless anarchy and strife — setting this aside, is any 
one childish enough to think that, for the next thirty 
years, whether Germany is inside or outside the League 
of ISTations, we can escape from being on the alert 
against her intrigues, so far as we leave her any 
power to intrigue ? The one master fact for our states- 
men to remember after victory, is that we have robbed 
Germany of the domination of the world, thwarted all 
her national hopes and ambitions, crushed her arma- 
ments and her commerce, and slaughtered the prime 
of her manhood. In doing this, we have inflamed the 
mad murderous instincts of her people to their highest 
pitch, and roused in her such deep-seated bitter ani- 
mosity and hungry desperate hate, as no goodwill and 
conciliation on our part will for a long generation serve 
to abate. 

We had to do this. It was unavoidable. Germany 
would have it so. We may not wish to remember it. 
Germany will. At our peril shall we forget it. 

Let us try to imagine what our feelings towardi 



108 Patriotism and 

Germany would be for the next thirty or forty years, 
if she had defeated us, and left us beggared, shamed, 
and crushed in the ruined corners of our shattered 
Empire. So far as any spark of national hope, or 
spunk of national virtue was left in us, could we ever 
forget it or forgive it? And being disarmed of all 
weapons of force, should we not cast about for every 
device to entangle her in the council of nations, on the 
chance of bringing to a head some combination against 
her ? 

Why should we think that Germany will do other- 
wise? Granted that we gain a complete and decisive 
victory, and that we build up impregnable barriers on 
every side against future German aggression, we shall 
still be confronted with a virile, industrious, prolific, 
scheming race of some seventy millions, united in a 
cormnon national purpose as no people have ever been, 
and nursing against its conquerors a sullen, unquench- 
able hate and study of revenge. Does any one claim 
that this will not be the dominant prepossession of the 
German mind, the driving force of German thought and 
action, after defeat ? He claims that the fundamental 
instincts and passions of mankind will suddenly change 
upon the signing of peace. He claims that Germans 
are endowed beyond all other nations with superhuman 
attributes of forgiveness, benevolence, and loving kind- 
ness to enemies. 

The more complete our victory, the more stringently 
we enforce the military and economic conditions that 
are necessary for our future peace and security, the 
more surely we may reckon that a deep, fierce fire of 
anger, hate, and revenge will be hotly kept alive in 
every German breast. 



Popular Education 109 

We may be sure of that. We may wish it other- 
wise. We may, and I hope we speedily shall, do all that 
can be safely done to extinguish the murderous pas- 
sions and animosities that the war has kindled. The 
arch criminals, the anointed stage braggart with his 
gang of robber conspirators and accessory ruffians who 
have done plain murders and felonies, must be ar- 
raigned, brought to trial, and punished before the eyes 
of all men, and this on a gibbet so high and conspicuous 
that all the coming generations may see it and say, 
"This was done to them who kicked over the world's 
great altar of Justice, and trampled it under their feet." 
When this is done, let all else be done, and all other 
sentences passed, by Mercy herself. 

But when we have shown the utmost clemency and 
generosity compatible with the security of the vast fu- 
ture interests committed to our care, we shall still have 
a running future account with a sullen, humiliated, 
bankrupt nation whom we have balked of her great 
prize of world dominion, just as it was within her grasp. 
It is not credible but that after defeat, Germany's 
present furious hatred for us will turn to a subterra- 
nean, resentful malevolence, all the more deadly because 
it will be largely curbed and stifled. 

To believe otherwise, is to believe that though Ger- 
many, by her every act and gesture in the last genera- 
tion, has shown that she is consistently and deliberately 
cruel, treacherous, utterly, regardless of truth and faith, 
reckless of all save her own interests, and remorseless 
in pursuit of them — that though she has shown us 
all this so plainly, yet, as soon as peace is signed, she 
will suddenly become something quite different. What 
is this but to fall into the same error, to lull ourselves 



110 Patriotism and 

into the same balmy doze of credulous benevolence and 
fatuous idealism, wherein we were overtaken by the 
war ? What physiological possibility is there of a wolf 
being suddenly transformed into a lamb ? What moral 
possibility is there of as radical a change in Germany's 
nature? Yet we are daily asked to shape our future 
policy, to steer our national course, in the certainty that 
this metempsychosis will take place as soon as the war 
is ended. Nay, we are implored to end the war at 
once, in order that the metempsychosis may take place 
without delay. 

Do we not know this nation ? Or, if there is anything 
yet to learn, will it not be that she has yet deeper depths 
of perfidy, cruelty, and blood-guiltiness than any we 
have yet explored ? Who can doubt, that supposing 
we gain the complete and decisive victory whereto all 
our resolves and energies are bent — who can doubt that, 
for long years to come, Germany's master feeling will 
be an intense, stealthy, ever-watchful hatred of the na- 
tions that have defeated her; and chiefly of England, 
who most of all barred the path of her ambition ; whose 
future and permanent interests lie nearest to hers, are 
most opposed to hers, and are most easily accessible to 
the creeping wiles of her penetration? 

We may deplore the continuance of German hatred 
after the war. It will be most unwelcome, most un- 
desirable; and terribly disconcerting to the industrious 
■wire-pullers of the millennium. We may do everything 
in our power to allay and avoid it. But it will remain. 
Amidst our surrounding uncertainties, it is one of the 
things that is fixed and sure. Amidst the quakings of 
this wild upheaval, it is one of the things upon which 
we may build. It should be a guide and key to our 
present and future policy. At our peril shall we deny 



Popular Education 111 

it, or sliiit our eyes to its probable intensity and dura- 
tion. 

I shall be accused of seeking to perpetuate enmity 
between Enc-land and Germanv. Are not the Germans 
as a nation very much akin to ourselves ? Are there 
not amongst them good husbands, loving fathers, de 
voted mothers, faithful friends, kind and charitable 
persons, honest workers, upright traders, and excellent 
citizens, even as amongst ourselves, and very much in 
the same proportions ? Is not average human nature 
in Germany very much upon the same level as in Eng- 
land? Let us therefore make haste to embrace these 
dear, kind folk. 

The impulses and passions, the aims and ambitions 
of a people are things apart from the impulses and 
passions, the aims and ambitions of the individual 
members of that people. They work in a different re- 
gion of each man's nature, and their collective action 
does not accord with the private virtues of the nation, 
and is often in direct violation of them. Our public 
conduct may be detestable, while our home life is irre- 
proachable. Our public life may be exemplary, while 
our home life is hideous. I will not let my grocer swin- 
dle me because he is a faithful husband. I will not 
shake hands with the burglar who has stolen my spoons 
because he is kind to his mother. I will judge him 
by his dealings with me. I will judge Germany by her 
dealings with my country, and with Belgium, France, 
Serbia, Poland, Russia, Rumania, Japan, China, and 
America- 
Let us avoid the entrapping fallacy that, because there 
are individual Germans who are much like individual 
Englishmen, therefore after the war the German nation 
will be like the English nation, and will be disposed to- 



112 Patriotism and 

wards friendly relations witli England, because Eng- 
land, after defeating her, may be disposed towards 
friendly relations with Germany. 

N^o, I do not seek to perpetuate enmity between the 
two nations. I do but note that, when the sun of peace 
shall shine, dark shadows will fall in the foul places of 
Germany. 

When Germany utterly denies and renounces her 
present aims and ambitions, and wholly changes her 
methods and temper — when she does this, not by the 
surface repentance of the lips, the counterfeit contrition 
of the tongue, but by the surety of deeds and the au- 
thentic signature of facts, then, as the passing years 
shall vouch for her sincerity, let her be gradually ad- 
mitted to the society and friendships of the nations. 

What sign has the German nation as a whole given 
of any such change of nature, or of any likelihood of 
it? All the omens point the other way. As I write, 
the news comes of the wanton sinking of another hos- 
pital ship and the wanton murder of its crew. Let 
us not deceive ourselves. Let us be sure that for a gen- 
eration after the war, the master passion of the Ger- 
man nation will be a resolute, abiding hatred of Eng- 
land. It cannot be otherwise. 

How will that hatred express itself? Disarmed by 
force, and doubly disarmed by poverty, Germany will 
be incapable of open, active aggression. All the en- 
ergy of her hatred will be employed in intrigue against 
us. Do we not know this nation ? Do we not remem- 
ber with what patient, sleepless, subtle contrivance she 
wove her net around us before the war, till our trade 
and all our world interests were fast strangled in its 
web? That same super-cunning will surely be more 
actively employed against us after the war, enforced 



Popular Education 113 

as it will be by all the bitterness of defeat in the field. 
What is there to prevent our seeing this, except our 
preference for living a quiet, comfortable life? 
Whether Germany is admitted to the League of Na- 
tions or not, we shall have to be always on guard 
against her intrigues. 

Now where could Germany find a more fruitful and 
capacious field for intrigue than in a League of I^a- 
tions, whose constitution will be most difficult to frame ; 
whose terms and conditions will almost certainly offend 
some national susceptibilities, and arouse some national 
jealousies from the outset; whose balances will need 
constant adjustment, according to the increasing or de- 
clining power of any nation to cog them to its own ad- 
vantage; whose every assembly will probably be a mar- 
ket for the side bargains of secret diplomacy ; and whose 
actual working may sooner or later bring upon us the 
very evil it was designed to protect us against. 

Is not this League of jSTations the very instrument 
that Germany would choose for developing her future 
intrigues ? Has she not already signified her accept- 
tance of it, and generously offered to take the lead in 
manipulating it ? Will it not give her constant oppor- 
tunities to undermine whatever unity there may be 
amongst its members, of playing them off against each 
other, in the hope that in the clash of jangling and 
conflicting interests, she may somehow shift the bal- 
ance in her favour, and gain by manoeuvres in council 
something of what she has lost by defeat in the field ? 
Will it not be to Germany's obvious interest thus to 
use a League of 1'3'ations for her own ends ? Then who 
is so simple as to doubt that Germany will pursue her 
own interests ? 

We have already a League of IsTations banded against 



114 Patriotism and 

her. After victory, that league will be strong enough 
to enforce its decisions upon the world without quibble 
or intrigue. Can anyone doubt that when the war is 
ended, some short, quite simple covenant between the 
nations composing that league, setting forth their main 
general aims, and proclaiming their determination to 
uphold the peace of the world against all disturbers — 
can anyone doubt tliat such a declaration by the Allied 
Nations will be a much safer and stronger instrument 
to work with, than a necessarily complicated, unstable, 
and precarious league of forty-six nations, with all their 
discordant interests, rivalries, and jealousies? Can any- 
one doubt that such an instrument will be much simpler 
to fashion, much easier to handle, much less pervious 
to the corruptions of secret diplomacy, much less likely 
to provoke international friction, and much more likely 
to secure the peace of the world for a lengthened period ? 
But the advocates of a League of Nations will be 
satisfied with nothing less than the instant and final 
abolition of war from the planet, and the peremptory 
establishment of perpetual universal peace. Their sole 
argument is that because perpetual universal peace is 
so obviously desirable, so obviously to the general in- 
terest of the nations, therefore some means must be 
invented to secure it. And a League of Nations is 
the only means that they can imagine. 

That perpetual, universal peace is desirable, nobody 
questions. But many things are desirable that are far 
from being possible. 

In all future events whose course cannot be precisely 
foreseen and demonstrated, in all the large maze of the 
unknown that stretches before us, the masses of man- 
kind believe what is most pleasing to them, what makes 
them most comfortable for the moment. Tt is enough 



Popular Education 115 

for them that something is desirable; if it cannot be 
definitely proved to be impossible, it becomes a cer- 
tainty to them. I once knew a man whose custom it 
was to spend his Sundays in singing verse of an ex- 
ceeding poor quality to the accompaniment of a har- 
monium, and in listening to the exposition of a strange 
system of theology which I could not comprehend. 
This pleased him so much, that he thought he should 
like to spend eternity in the same occupations. I could 
find no evidence that he would be so employed, but his 
imagination became so inflamed with this engaging 
prospect, that he was fii-mly convinced of its future 
reality. That it would be a delightful way of spend- 
ing eternity, was enough to satisfy him that it was a 
certainty. So the mere desirability of perpetual uni- 
versal peace, is enough to convince its projectors that 
it will be attained, and already they begin to tune up 
their harmoniums. 

We are like servant girls who take their little sav- 
ings to a fortune teller, knowing that for a shilling they 
can buy a happy future with a fair young man who 
possesses boundless wealth. Since it cannot be proved 
that the desirable fair young man is not waiting 
somewhere about with marriageable intent, why not 
take him for a certainty, and render the present drud- 
gery more endurable ? 

Wliat is the likelihood that a League of Nations will 
fulfil its promise, and marry us to fair young perpetual 
peace, and make us happy and rich for ever afterwards ? 
Unless the wild forces now let loose all the world over, 
should presently clash in a blind mad industrial war, 
we have a tolerably good security for a lengthened peace 
in the fact that all the nations have exhausted them- 
selves in a cruel and bloody war, leaving them neither 



116 Patriotism and 

the means nor tlie energies for further diversions of 
that kind. Peace is probably assured for a generation 
whether or not we have a League of N^ations. For the 
present a League of Nations seems to be largely un- 
necessary, especially if after the war, the nations now 
allied will enter into an agreement amongst themselves, 
and publish a clear proclamation of their aims. After 
victory, the peace of the world will be in their keeping 
for a generation or two, and it will best be secured by 
this simple means, and by occasional renewals of an 
understanding among themselves. 

But the projectors of a League of Nations are de- 
manding a permanent compact, whose sanctity they 
allow, must, in the last resort, be assured by the em- 
ployment of international troops. Is not this almost 
certain to provoke dissension and general disruption at 
some future time? For be it remembered that if a 
League of Nations is to secure its avowed aim, and be 
a perpetual barrier against war, one breach in its bul- 
warks may possibly let in the devouring ocean. One 
single failure will prove it to be a dangerous futility, 
a bastion built of pasteboard. Is not the widespread 
misery and devastation of the present war, largely due 
to the fact that England for half a century, put up 
pasteboard bastions to defend her empire ? 

What are the chances that a League of Nations will 
be perennially successful in ensuring peace by a mere 
parade of international troops ? For if those interna- 
tional troops are ever employed in actual warfare 
against the disturber of the peace, what is that but to 
use the exact means of securing peace which the allied 
nations are using at this present moment ? And if in 
the commotion that will ensue, the conflicting interests 
of the nations should happen to shift to a fairly even 



Popular Education 117 

balance, may it not finally mean the employment of as 
large a number of troops as are to-day engaged in en- 
forcing peace by the only means that the nations have 
yet discovered ? 

When we assume the permanent success of a League 
of I^ations, what do we build upon? Our first postu- 
late is that the fundamental instincts and passions 
of mankind will suddenly change upon the signing of 
the peace; for hitherto all through the past, these in- 
stincts and passions have at intervals embroiled the 
nations in war. Our second postulate is that every 
nation will in the future be endowed with a wise and 
clear discernment of its own interests, and that it may 
be trusted always to pursue these interests with a strict 
regard to all its neighbours' interests. It would be dif- 
ficult to find in the past, one nation that has, for any 
length of time, discerned where its true interests lay, 
still less pursued them with a strict regard to all its 
neighbours' interests. With forty-six nations and com- 
munities spreading more rapidly than ever over a planet 
that daily affords them less and less fertile accommo- 
dation, we may be sure that their separate individual 
interests will tend more and more to come into col- 
lision. If no one nation can long be trusted to pursue 
its own interests in harmony with all the conceptions 
and estimates which its neighbours have formed of 
their interests, how can forty-six nations be trusted al- 
ways to pursue their individual interests in harmony 
with all the varying conceptions and estimates which 
all their neighbours may happen, as time goes by, to 
form of their own individual interests ? 

If we carefully examine the foundations upon which 
the projectors of a League of Nations are building, 
we shall find that their corner stone is the assumption 



118 Patriotism and 

that in the future all the nations will be wise for all 
of the time. That is the ultimate guarantee of the suc- 
cess of their enterprise. It is rash and dangerous to 
assume that all the nations will be wise for part of the 
time. It is even more rash and more dangerous to 
assume that some of the nations will be wise for all 
of the time. But to assume that all the nations will 
be wise for all of the time, is to ascend from the sublime 
heights of Utopia, to those sublime heights where lunar 
beams fall full on the naked skulls of fanatics, and 
moonstruck unreason ranges at its will. 

Let us descend to the habitable haunts of common 
sense. Let us not go bail for the perpetual reasonable- 
ness and good behaviour of all the nations of the earth. 
Let us be sure that in the future, as in the past, there 
will be many conflicts of interest amongst the peoples, 
much short sight and carelessness and blundering of 
politicians in handling them, much muddling blindness 
in the conduct of every nation's business. Let us hope 
that mankind will learn many valuable lessons from the 
war; but let us not, because we have battered down a 
medieval robber stronghold in Central Europe, assume 
that therefore all democracies will in the future, guide 
their relations with all their neighbours from the lofty 
standpoint of an unselfish regard for all their neigh- 
bours' interests. 

In the twilight of our present uncertainties, the keen- 
est foresight would hesitate to number or to name the 
forces that are stealthily gathering in the ambushes of 
the future. What are those dark forms moving dimly 
across the horizon yonder — just there, where the mi- 
rage of the millennium throws up its faint ineffectual 
haze — gesticulating wildly, with confused anarchic 
cries, and goading themselves into action? Who can 



Popular Education 119 

foretell the groupings and cleavages and dispositions of 
the peoples ? Let us avert our eyes, and make haste to 
frame a League of Nations. 

Seeing that it is very desirable, and not wholly im- 
possible, that wars should cease from the moment that 
this war is ended, let us accept it for a fact. War being 
an intolerable nuisance and a great hindrance to busi- 
ness, let us away with it, and manage international 
affairs by a Committee. 

The prospect is not reassuring. In Committees that 
deal with complex and thorny matters, it is not justice 
and good sense that usually prevail, but time-serving 
compromises, and temporary unstable adjustments of 
finally irreconcilable interests, jealousies, and whimsies. 
The distilled essence of all the wisdom there is amongst 
the separate members of a Committee, often drains out 
from them as a compound of folly. 

Still, let us grant that when international affairs are 
managed by a Committee of the League of ^Nations, 
justice and good sense will contrive to keep the upper 
hand perpetually. Let us assume that the Committee 
will be always wise and always honest, and that they 
will succeed in persuading the ITations they represent 
to be always wise and always honest in pursuit of their 
individual interests. N^o force will then ever need to 
be used, and war will be banished from our planet. 

What does that signify ? 

The instinct of self-preservation in every people, the 
fear of being pushed or stamped out, the hunger for 
national life and for yet more national life, the desire 
of mastery, the pride of place — all these primary, in- 
eradicable impulses will still be at work all the world 
over, and no longer finding their outlet in war, will 
find it in an incessant, fierce, and bitter economic strug- 



120 Patriotism and 

gle. Let us not dream that when we cease from war, 
we shall cease from fighting. The competition in arma- 
ments will he metamorphosed into a competition 
amongst all the impoverished nations for the means of 
life, and for the sources of nourishment and comfort. 
Already the smell of that battle is in the air, and tariff 
constructors in all countries are pawing their hoofs, 
and champing their bridles to charge at the enemy. 

Will that new war upon which we shall enter as soon 
as the last cannon shot is fired in this, be so rich with 
spiritual issues, and bring home to mankind so large 
a spiritual victory as this present conflict ? With all its 
unimaginable count of sufferings, horrors, defilements, 
and slaughters, this war will yet leave to humanity an 
entailed legacy of supreme accomplishment, of un- 
flinching fortitudes and heroisms immeasurable; of 
reckless, stupendous self-sacrifices, and of indomitable 
resolution in the achievement of the noblest ends. Can 
we hope that the coming commercial war will bring 
to its combatants, any such purging and regeneration 
of their natures, any such kindling inspiration to live 
and to die at the highmost pitch of unselfish endeavour, 
and to win the heavenly prize for unrecorded, unre- 
warded devotion to duty? 

Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war, 
but their winning does not stir and sting our souls to 
their finest responses, or nerve great multitudes to en- 
dure agony and martyrdom in deadly wi'estle with the 
powers of darkness, or leave the hearts of men tingling 
with exultant remembrance of conquest over enthroned 
and fortressed evil. Victories of peace bring provender 
and comfort and happiness to mankind, but victories 
in righteous war sow rich lattermaths of spiritual sat- 
isfaction, and harvests of spiritual profit. We justly 



Popular Education 121 

honour the statesmen who negotiate for us a wise com- 
mercial treaty, or ease our financial burdens by sound 
national economy; but we never pay them the adoring 
homage that we render to the three mighty men who 
brake through the host of the Philistines to bring a 
cup of water from the well by the gate of Bethlehem; 
or to the common soldier who crawls out in a hail of 
fire and willingly offers his life to save a wounded 
comrade. That broken, bandaged wreck of humanity 
in blue flannel, who sits and warms himself in the 
sun on yonder bench, his crutches by his side, his 
strength and lustihood left in the Flanders trenches, 
his flaming youth quenched into apathy and listless 
surrender, his manhood cheated of the bustle of glad 
vigorous toil, and the joys and caresses of home, his 
hopes subdued within the narrow compass of a cripple's 
aims and efforts, a looker-on at life for all his long, help- 
less years^ — that shattered blue pensioner has in his 
heart the source of a sacred pride, an enviable boast 
and solace of supreme service rendered to his fellows, 
of duty done in defiance of death and hell, that no busy 
workman, or useful clerk, or prosperous tradesman, or 
industrial magnate will ever win for himself in the 
warfare of commerce. For he gave his all for his fel- 
lows, and his wages are mutilation, and a pittance, and 
frustrated, lonely helplessness. 

It is a sure and true instinct that marks the man 
who defends his country, and not merely for admira- 
tion and honour, but for admiration and honour of a 
peculiar kind that we give to no other man. The sol- 
dier fights for others; the hardships are for him and 
the benefits are for others. But in commercial war- 
fare, each man fights for himself; the hardships are 
often for others and the benefits chiefly for himself. 



122 Patriotism and 

If, then, in the future, war is banished from the 
planet, and men's primal ineradicable instincts of riv- 
alry, aggression, and dominance find their fierce play 
no longer in the battlefield, but in the factory, the shop, 
and the counting-house, will it be wholly for the ad- 
vancement of mankind ? Closing our eyes to the threat- 
ening signs of an interregnum of widespread social an- 
archy, which may possibly follow the present war, we 
are preparing ourselves for a long era of hard, com- 
mercial strain, and economic conflict. 

How will the graces and virtues of the spirit, the 
valours and sanctities of the soul, the ornaments and 
elegancies of the mind, fare in the hustle and juggle 
and scrimmage of world-wide, universal, commercial 
war? 

I have known much of English commercial life. I 
have some knowledge and experience of American com- 
mercial methods and practices. These nations may 
justly claim that, as human nature is constituted, they 
compare very favourably with most other nations. 
There is certainly a greater proportion of righteous men 
in London and in New York, than would have saved 
Sodom from destruction. But commercial life every- 
where seems to be necessarily leavened with baseness, 
dishonesty, greed, and cunning selfislmess. Can we 
contemplate, with any satisfaction, the perpetual dedi- 
cation of the greater part of mankind to industrialism 
and commercialism, human life everywhere becoming 
more mechanical, more uniformly prosperous and banal 
and smug, dwarfed down to standards of material com- 
fort and competence ? The spirit of man loses its fin- 
est impulses, loses its wings if it stays too long in the 
warm nest of material prosperity. On both sides of the 
Atlantic, amongst men of high repute and great com- 



Popular Education 123 

mereial standing, I have known trade dealings and 

daily practices so abhorrently mean and dishonest, that 

rather than put my son to fight for his livelihood with 

such weapons, I would thrust him into the deadliest 

forefront of our battle line, and think I had acted well 

by him. Those fathers who in future years will send 

their sons into that fierce economic battle with all its 

ignoble evils and chicaneries, will show no cause for 

envy to him, who, having in his heart the consecrated 

remembrance of a son fallen in Flanders, can say with 

old Siward: 

God's soldier be he! 
Had I as many sons as I have hairs! 
I could not wish them to a fairer death. 

Is there not some reason for the suspicion men have 
always had, that a prolonged peace inevitably tends to 
corruption, lethargy, internal mischief, and fatty de- 
generation of the peoples? Is not that suspicion veri- 
fied by the condition of England before the war ? Let 
us suppose that the nations now settle into a long amity 
and fruitful friendship of labour for each other's good ; 
that natural resources are everywhere developed; that 
gradually the losses and impoverishments of the war are 
made good ; that the waste places of the earth are sown 
with abundant harvests; that large cities spring up in 
every land, with increasing populations and accumula- 
tions of wealth; that our now empty exchequers are 
filled to overflowing; that in the meantime all provoca- 
tions to war have been successfully parried by the 
League of Nations; that all national jealousies have 
been quelled, all national antipathies allayed, all dis- 
cordant national ambitions renounced, all conflicting na- 
tional interests sacrificed for the common welfare. 
Some such ultimate condition of afl^airs on the surface 



124 Patriotism and 

of the planet, is what the projectors of a League of 
ITations must have in their mind, so far as they are not 
weltering in confused amiability, and do really know 
and understand what they are aiming at, and what they 
propose to achieve. I do not say that such a general 
condition of afPairs will ever be possible. I do say 
that it is the only general condition of affairs which an 
advocate of a League of Nations can conceive, or can 
desire, as the final and successful outcome of his plan. 
If that is not what he is working for, aiming at, pro- 
posing to achieve, what general condition of affairs does 
he set before himself as likely to be ultimately estab- 
lished by the operations of a League of ISTations ? 

Let us place ourselves in the distant future and 
imagine that this seductive forecast is already fulfilled, 
that the League of ISFations has accomplished all that 
its founders hoped and proposed. It needs great hardi- 
hood of faith in lucky chance, and still greater hardi- 
hood of faith in the constant and universal wisdom 
of mankind, to suppose that such a general condition 
of human affairs will be realised without war amongst 
the nations. It needs much hardihood of faith to sup- 
pose it will be realized without war between classes. 
And surely, if it is desirable to prevent bloodshed be- 
tween nations, it is equally desirable to prevent blood- 
shed between classes. Since, however, the League of 
iN'ations does not concern itself with the possible super- 
vention of a widespread class war, let us for the time 
leave it out of our calculations. 

Let us suppose that the League of ITations, through- 
out a long lapse of years and many generations, has 
fulfilled the most ardent desires of its promoters. The 
covet ings and passions of the forty-six nations have been 
ruled out of order by the decisions of our Committee. 



Popular Education 125 

Wars have ceased. Armaments have gradually fallen 
into disuse. Weapons of destruction are no longer 
manufactured. The last great war in the early twen- 
tieth century has become a mere dusty storehouse for 
historians and romancers. Under the long reign of 
peace, and aided by science and mechanics, mankind 
have increased and multiplied at an ever-swiftening 
rate, until they have occupied all the fertile spaces 
of the earth, from the sands of the Tropics to the ice 
fringes of the Poles. Old nations have dwindled and 
perished ; new nations and races have arisen and multi- 
plied. And meantime, terrified by the past awful ex- 
ample of this present war, the turbulent new young 
races have meekly trodden the paths of peace, obedient 
to the rulings of our Committee, who have nicely ac- 
commodated and smoothed away every difficulty, every 
animosity, every aggression, every threat of disruption 
as it arose. 

But owing to the continued prosperity and abund- 
ance brought about by perpetual peace, the earth has 
become inconveniently and dangerously over-populated. 
Unfortunately, the various peoples have kept on breed- 
ing; and the new younger races have been breeding 
much faster than the older ones. These vigorous up- 
starts have been growing more and more dissatisfied 
with the stretches of territory, the privileges, and the 
opportunities for expansion allotted to them by our 
Committee. They have long been a gathering threat 
to the peaceful economy of the world, established by the 
league of ISTations — these fast multiplying parvenus 
with odious practices in morals, and complexions equal- 
ly objectionable. For in a world once and for all made 
safe for democracy, N'ature, having none of our preju- 
dices against a shady complexion, has allowed and 



126 Patriotism and 

encouraged an altogether disproportionate increase of 
these swarthy, unscrupulous breeders. Hitherto they 
have been kept in awe by the sage admonitions and de- 
cisions of our Committee, and by tlie tradition, handed 
down from the early twentieth century, that war is a 
cruel and horrible process, and that its weapons are 
so dangerous and destructive that it is inadvisable to 
meddle with them. Under a system of universal Pop- 
ular Education, even more generous and illuminating 
than the one you have so successfully inaugurated, these 
young races have possessed themselves of all the dis- 
coveries of science. Their gTOwing ambitions, their 
pride of adolescent strength, their consciousness of 
power, their desire of mastery over the older nations, 
their sense of not being allotted their proper place in 
the world — all these ineradicable human instincts and 
passions have long been unbearably suppressed and con- 
tained. And the world is over-populated, and all its 
desirable and habitable territory is occupied. 

Can anyone imagine a general condition of affairs 
more ripe and certain to lead to a world-wide devastat- 
ing war? Yet some such general condition of affairs 
must be the inevitable result of a League of ^N'ations, 
if its operations are continuously successful. IN'or can 
its advocates indicate any definite possible alternative, 
without postulating that the fundamental instincts and 
passions of humanity will change, and that man will 
become a creature of so different a nature from our- 
selves that no prognosis can be made about him. 

Again, I do not assert or believe that humanity will 
ever arrive at such a general condition of affairs. But 
an onus lies upon the projectors of the League of Na- 
tions to tell us what other developments are possible, 
what other goal they expect to reach, and, when they 



Popular Education 127 

reacli that goal, what agency is to intervene and pre- 
vent the successful working of their machine from 
leading to a malignant outburst of the very evil it was 
designed to abolish. 

I do not suppose that there is any believer in the 
efficacy of a League of !N^ations who will not acknowl- 
edge that long before the world has arrived at that con- 
dition of affairs I have indicated, the League will be 
dissolved or superseded. 

By what, but by war ? 

Is it imagined that some even more binding and en- 
during safeguard will be discovered to secure universal 
perpetual peace? What league, or compact, or safe- 
guard can be conceived that does not rest upon the as- 
sumption that all the nations will be wise for all of the 
time, and that they will all show a perpetual lofty re- 
gard for all their neighbours' interests, and a perpetual 
readiness for self-abnegation? iN'othing that we know 
of the history of mankind in the past, nothing that we 
can observe of the nature and motives of mankind in 
the present, nothing that we can reasonably hope of 
mankind in the future, warrants us in putting trust in 
any such shaky security. Probably the advocates of 
a League of itTations, if they can be summoned from 
the cloudy mountain-tops of amiable generalities and 
benevolent aspirations, will admit as much. Then they 
admit that their scheme is merely tentative, experimen- 
tal, temporary; a paserelle that will not bear the con- 
tinuous weight of the world's lumbering heavy traffic, 
but will break down whenever too great a strain is put 
upon its fragile supports. It may not break down for 
generations. Is there any assurance that it may not 
break down within five years ? After our victory, when 
peace is signed, will the world's forces be in such a 



128 Patriotism and 

state of stable equilibrium, that tbere will be no dan- 
ger of some fresh outbreak of war ? Everything prom- 
ises fair for a long reign of peace, if the enormous 
difficulties of the settlement can be successfully nego- 
tiated. But, granted that some tolerable general ac- 
commodation is secured, can we be certain that it will 
endure for any great length of time, and that all in- 
ternational concord may not soon be broken and rent 
by class divisions and warfare? This tempest will 
not subside without leaving a tremendous ground-swell, 
and clashing, baffling cross-currents that no man can 
divine. Will the strongest advocate of a League of 
Nations guarantee for it any stability, amidst the clash 
of the world forces that will meet round its cradle ? 

The one thing of sovereign surety for us to note, and 
to keep in mind as a guide and director of our perma- 
nent national policy, is that the longer a League of 
Nations works successfully, the nearer it leads us to 
the approach of war. For by its very operation, it tends 
to bring about a state of prosperity amongst the most 
advanced nations, a period of temporary adjustments 
and compromises amongst finally irrecoucileable inter- 
ests, and an over-reaching surplus of population, that 
are of themselves the surest provocations to war. 

This law of balancing alternations of peace and war 
can be traced through all past history, though its in- 
cidence has often been obscured by the ambitions and 
decrees of kings, and the mistakes and follies of states- 
men. May we not claim that the present war is one of 
its alternations? For though the German Emperor 
may be the last monarch who will strut and crow and 
bluster out blasphemy to inflame his people to their 
destruction, the German nation will not be the last 
nation to demand a larger place in the sun than their 



Popular Education 129 

neighbours will allow them. We may feel reasonably 
confident that this law of balancing alternations of 
peace and war will be operative in the future, as it has 
been in the past, though its periods may be more within 
the control of our foresight. But no foresight can 
finally avert its operation, seeing that it is the necessary 
result of the permanent fundamental instincts of man- 
kind in constant struggle with the permanent condi- 
tions of life. 

This law is in perpetual operation over all the spaces 
of the earth, and chiefly in those areas that are most 
thickly populated and congested. By recognizing its 
necessity and preparing for its incidence, nations may 
avoid the worst evils of its recurring vicissitudes. By 
denying it, and seeking to elude its operation, as we 
did in the generation before the war, nations do but 
bring themselves all the more surely and terribly under 
its rigours. For it mocks at such phrases as "making 
the world safe for democracy," and tosses them into the 
limbo of futilities, and self-deceptions, and fallacious 
generalities. 

'Nor, supposing that we could split up the peoples 
and segregate them in classes instead of in nations, 
should we defeat or long arrest the operation of this 
law. Indeed, there is every indication that the di- 
vision of the world into classes, if it could be stabilized, 
would put supreme power into the hands of men less 
wise, less regardful of the rights of others, more greedy 
of authority, more unscrupulous in using it, more short- 
sighted, and more likely to bring about frequent and 
bloody intermissions of the world's peace, than the po- 
tentates and politicians who have hitherto ruled or 
misruled the nations. In their pursuit of the phantom 
of equality, men may yet bring upon themselves suffer- 



130 Patriotism and 

inga and horrors as great as any thoy arc now endur- 
ing. While if perfect eciuality could ho attained for 
one single moment, that monumt could he the starting 
point of the crudest universal war the world has ever 
known. UnloHS, indeed, all the fundamental instincts 
and passions of mankind had hoen exterminated in tho 
process of reaching equality. In that event, the pros- 
pect hefore dehumanized and sterilized mankind would 
he a state of incessant mechanical monotonous toil, for 
a race of hcings as stereotyped into uniformity as the 
inmates of a heehive, and with no higher functions, or 
ambitions, or hopes, or varieties of interest. 

The comhativc instincts of our race will always 
prevent us from reaching anything that approaches to 
a state of equality. And those comhative instincts will 
always find their exercise alternately in a war of com- 
merce, and in a war of arms. The longer the nations 
dance round and round the mulherry hush of perpetual 
peace, tho more likely they are to tundde hack head- 
long into the slough of war that lies just outside their 
careless circle. The final I'osponsihle custodian of peace 
will never be the international lawyer, tho politician, 
the preacher, the humanitarian, or the policeman, but 
always the soldiers. 

This need not prevent us from doing all we can to 
postpone the intervention of the soldier till the latest 
moment, to dispense with his services whenever it is 
possible, to make his visits as rare and brief and hu- 
mane as may be, and to give him his earliest dismissal 
when his work is done. To recognize that war may be 
an occasional necessity, is not to acclaim it as a bless- 
ing, or to sanctify it as an idol. Tho surest way to 
avoid the worst evils and horrors of war, is to be aware 
when they aio lurking in our path, and to be vigilantly 



Popular Education 131 

prepared to meet them. Let us do everything in our 
power to promote good will and good understanding 
amongst the peoples, and to subdue international riv- 
alries and aggressions. But if we carefully study the 
profiles and facial angles of the various peoples of the 
earth, beginning with our daily companions in the 
motor-buses and tubes, we shall be driven to the sad and 
humble confession that man has not yet advanced much 
more than half-way on his progress from the anthropoid 
to the angel, and that probably much tough miscellan- 
eous fighting, both bodily and spiritual, lies before 
him in his ascending path. 

The immediate danger of a League of Nations is 
that it will give Germany constant opportunities to 
intrigue and stir up dissensions within it. 

Why this constant distrust and suspicion of Ger- 
many? Are we not assured that the moment peace is 
signed, the Ethiopian will change his skin, and the 
leopard his spots, and that Germany will straightway 
tear out all the rooted fibres of cunning, aggression, 
and ci-uel ambition that are bcr dear heart-strings, and 
that are twined round all the nerves and muscles of her 
national being? Why, then, when we are about to en- 
ter upon a long and bitter economic war with her, 
and when she has already devised new schemes of 
commercial frightfulness to be employed against us — 
why not seize this now chance of hoodwinking our- 
selves, as we did at the beginning of the present war, 
and give her a free hand to pursue her economic policy 
to our disadvantage and disaster? 

Not by a League of Nations, with its unstable con- 
stitution ofTcring continual opportunities for any dis- 
satisfied nation to stir up strife, but by a firm com- 
pact between the Allies now fighting to redeem eiviliza- 



132 Patriotism and 

tion, and by a simple unequivocal declaration of their 
aims, will a lengthened world-peace be most likely to 
ensue. 

The remote, but very real and permanent, danger of 
a League of Nations is that the longer it works suc- 
cessfully, the more the peoples will nurse the delusion 
that they are protected from all danger of war by an 
automatic machine, and will be lulled again into the 
same false security from which we have just been so 
rudely awakened. Will not some distant future time 
arrive when again the nations will be fat regorged with 
comfort and prosperity, while in the gathering clouds 
above them, black Hecate sits singing to her sisters the 
same song she was singing over us five years ago — 

For you all know, security 
Is mortal's chiefest enemy. 

If we could convey ourselves to A.D. 6920, and, look- 
ing backward, see spread out before us the map of the 
world's history for the past ten thousand years, all 
woven into one continuous whole, should we find that 
while the first five thousand years up to 1920 were 
sprinkled red all over with bloodstains of the jarring 
nations, the last five thousand years were one long 
white roll of unstained perpetual peace? Should we 
find that the same breed of human kind, with the same 
passions and instincts, and living under the same per- 
manent natural laws that provoke them to constant 
rivalry and strife — that this same, breed of men, who 
had scarcely allowed one of the first five thousand years 
to pass without some rupture of peace, suddenly on 
a certain date about 1920 renounced all their ancestral 
impulses and habits, reversed all the momentum of the 
past, threw up their weapons, placed themselves under 



Popular Education 133 

the guidance of a Committee, and passed the last five 
thousand years without any embroilment of war? If 
there is any advocate of a League of Nations who be- 
lieves that human affairs will take such a course in 
the next five thousand years, in the next five hundred, 
I entreat him to read a suggestive pamphlet by an anon- 
ymous author, called "The Folly of having Opinions — 
a Perennial Caution to Mankind." This thoughtful lit- 
tle brochure should be in everybody's hands. I am told 
it is to be read aloud at the opening of the next Church 
Congress. 

That the years 1914-1920 will be a dividing line be- 
tween two definitely marked periods of human history, 
and perhaps between two widely differing kinds of 
civilization, we have reason to believe. It is even con- 
ceivable that the events of these years will ultimately 
work such beneficial changes in human thought and 
action, and in the conditions of living, that some future 
philosopher may claim that, on the whole, the war 
brought a balance of good to mankind. But no sur- 
veyor of these years in the distant future will find that 
the continuity of human history was then severed as by 
scissors, cutting off all the threads of national passions, 
ambitions, and rivalries that in former times wove 
themselves into the dreadful pattern of war, and leav- 
ing them for all time to come hanging loose in the 
void. 

If we look into the dark backward and abysm of 
time so far as eyes can reach, we see that war has in- 
termittently arisen in every habitable tract of the earth, 
from the Equator to the Arctic snows. It has intermit- 
tently arisen amongst every nation and race. It has 
intermittently arisen in every phase of every succeed- 
ing civilization — amongst the lowest savages, and 



134 Patriotism and 

amongst the peoples who have reached the highest levels 
of literature and art and luxury. It has intermittently 
arisen under all the varying forms of religion. 

Vast regions of the earth have been changed from 
swamp and desert and forest, into plains of fruitful 
cultivation and busy streets of commerce and industry, 
and have passed again into desolate wastes and haunts 
of lizards and creeping things. War has been the hand- 
maiden of both changes. Scattered tribes in caves and 
huts, have gi'own into powerful nations in populous 
cities, holding half the world in fee, and have dwindled 
into poverty and impotence and decay. War welded 
them into unity and gave them the sceptre of dominion ; 
war snatched that sceptre from their hands, shattered 
their pride, and gave their heritage to their foes. Count- 
less civilizations have spiking up through all the ages in 
all quarters of the globe, differing strangely in laws and 
customs and manners, and in their forms of literature 
and art. War has largely framed their codes, and laid 
the comer stones of their institutions. War has always 
been busy inspiring literature, designing fashion in 
dress, giving laws to architecture. War has jogged 
the cradle of every civilization, and pushed it into its 
grave. A thousand forms of religion have in their 
turn held sway over the spirit of man, from the crudest 
superstition to the latest refinements of Neo-Christian- 
ity. War has alternately been the protector and the de- 
stroyer of each of them, sometimes its imperious mas- 
ter, more often its ready servant. The priests of every 
creed have blessed their country's banners, and preached 
their crusades. 

That is what we see when we look into the dark back- 
ward and abysm of time. 

If we could look into the dark forward and abysm of 



Popular Education 135 

time, should we see a sudden disappearance from all 
human affairs, of this compulsive giant who has hither- 
to been active in them all, and has penetrated and in- 
formed every nation, every social fabric, every civilisa- 
tion, every creed, through every generation that has 
lived under the sun? Should we see an abrupt stop- 
page at A.D. 1920, of all the natural forces that have 
hitherto swept the peoples of the earth into conflict 
with each other after the lapse of every few years? 
Should we see the fountains of the great deep of na- 
tional rivalries, and enmities, and ambitions securely 
dammed up by the word of man, their Pontic rush and 
flow arrested, the flood of their waters standing like 
a wall, as the waters of the Red Sea stood at the com- 
mand of Moses? 

Is it probable? Is it credible? Does anyone claim 
that this is what will happen after 1920 ? He is not in 
communion with facts. He is in communion with his 
whimsies. He is living in a world where action does 
not call forth reaction. 

The framers of a League of Nations may stand upon 
the beach, and bid the main flood bate his usual height. 
Canute issued a command to the same effect, and if he 
had chosen the moment of an ebbing tide, there is every 
reason to believe that the sea would have obeyed him. 
The framers of a League of Nations are likely to be 
more fortunate. They will be calling upon an ebbing 
tide to recede, and they will doubtless have the satisfac- 
tion of seeing the angi-y waves subside at their bidding. 
But when the flood tide shall return, will they fare any 
better than the other children who build their castles on 
the sands ? 

Nations rarely go to war because they desire to go 
to war. There is always an almost universal prepos- 



136 Patriotism and 

session in favour of peace. War insinuates itself ; it lies 
in wait for the nations, and ere ever they are aware of 
it, they ai'e sucked into its whirlpool. The advocates of 
a League of Nations perceive this, and propose to set 
a trap for War, as for some outside, visible, tangible 
enemy; not knowing that he is lurking in their own 
hearts all the while, and that his instruments are not 
guns and bombs, but the abiding envies and greeds and 
selfish instincts of mankind. 

Could any nation be more resolutely pacific than was 
America at the outbreak of the war ? The prevailing 
opinion was that the peoples of Europe had gone mad. 
Clearly the only thing that sane America could do was 
to wonder and shudder at the crazy, bloody spectacle ; to 
feel thankful to be out of it; and to stand aside till a 
chance came to mediate. N'o other role seemed possible 
to Americans. 

But events they had not willed or foreseen, beckoned 
them to come and take their part. They protestedr 
They refused. It shocked all their stock habits of na- 
tional thought; it violated all their standards of na- 
tional conduct ; it mocked at all their cherished national 
ideals. They would have none of it. 

The summoning, clamouring war trumpets of Eu- 
rope blared out another furious call. They roused 
American mothers to a counterblast. With abounding 
maternal emotion, but with grievous poverty of lyi-ical 
impulse, they chanted back to the war trumpets: 

I did not raise my darling boy to be a soldier; 

I brought him up to be my pride and joy. 
I will not let him wear a musket on his shoulder, 

To kill some other mother's darling boy. 

So sang the American mothers two years ago, hugging 
their darling boys to their bosoms. But He that had 



Popular Education 137 

the steerage of their course, caught them in His fist, 
blew His strong breath, and filled their sails, and 
wafted them to France, there to fulfil the destiny that 
He, and not their mothers, had chosen for them. Nor 
will any American mother whose son is gathered 
amongst the first fruits of her country's valour, in that 
richest vintage those vineyards have ever known, es- 
teem him any the less her pride and joy, because he 
found in the valley of the Marne a safer and more 
sacred resting-place than in her arms. 

How strangely different is the gigantic part which 
America is playing in this stupendous drama, from 
the very modest role which she proposed to herself, of 
witness to the peace treaty in the last act! Yet there 
were voices that called upon her to prepare for some 
such destiny, and warned her that not in vowed se- 
clusion from the enmities and conflicts of mankind, does 
a nation find either material security or spiritual ad- 
vancement. 

For the past century, Americans have had a huge 
fertile continent with boundless undeveloped resources. 
And all through this century, science and mechanical 
inventions have enormously eased and smoothed the 
conditions of living. Americans have never been crowd- 
ed into narrow spaces with greedy competitors. They 
have never needed to covet territory from their neigh- 
bours, because they have always had more of their 
ovtTi than they could occupy. Never has a nation lived 
for so long a time in circumstances so favourable to 
peace, so little provocative to war. Is it any wonder 
then, that with little actual experience of war, with 
continued prosperity, and with wide spaces of elbow- 
room giving all their national energies free scope, 
Americans confirmed themselves in the notion that 



138 Patriotism and 

peace is the natural perennial condition of mankind, 
and that all that is necessary to abolish war from the 
planet, is that men should get sensible ideas on the sub- 
j^t. To the same long lack of actual experience of war 
on our own soil, may be traced the rankest growths 
of pacifism in England. 

In all the past, no nation has gained any enviable or 
conspicuous place on the earth's surface, and established 
itself in some sort of security, except by means of war. 
No nation has risen to influence and power, or to any 
high degree of civilization, without conquering some 
of its neighbours, and absorbing them in its own popu- 
lation. Nations have not improved their material and 
spiritual conditions, and advanced in the arts of life, 
by merely remaining within their own borders and 
multiplying amongst themselves. It is true that they 
have grown and progressed in the intervals of peace, 
but it has been by means of the already accomplished 
subjection of other races, whom they have compelled 
to mingle and multiply with them, and make one com- 
posite people. When a nation has stayed within its 
own borders and merely multiplied, it has not advanced 
in civilization. It has settled down to intellectual and 
spiritual stagnancy and decrepitude, as in China. 

By a lucky accident, that will never happen again 
to any people, Americans tumbled into the inheritance 
of a vast, unclaimed continent, where every condition 
seemed favourable for perpetual peace. But before they 
could be masters in it, they had to fight England; be- 
fore they could possess it, they had to subjugate and 
wellnigh exterminate the Indians; before they could 
establish themselves as a great power, free to work out 
their own ideals, they had to wage a long and bitter 
war amongst themselves. And to-day, America, the 



Popular Education 139 

home and dedicated sanctuary of peace, is one huge 
workshop of war, throughout the length and breadth 
of her continent. Her armies and navies have become 
the pivots of our defence, and the guardians of Euro- 
pean civilization. Against her most steadfast purpose 
declared for generations, against all her power of self- 
determination, has this change been wrought. 

What more teasing, fascinating employment can 'im- 
agination find than to guess what new astounding part 
America may play amongst the nations, when they 
gather themselves after this war, broken and tattered 
and beggared, and begin to lay the foundations of a 
new civilization on this wreckage of the old world? 
How often in past years have I watched and wondered, 
and sometimes shuddered a little, at that vast uncouth 
fabric of mechanical and material prosperity, raising 
itself towards heaven by means of forty-storied sky- 
scrapers that dwarf into contempt the less conspicuous 
and less consecrated spires of one or two churches cow- 
ering in mean obscurity beneath them ! 

If the war will work surprising changes in Euro- 
pean civilization, will it not work even more surpris- 
ing changes in the younger and more plastic civilization 
of America ? Will it not break many of the ordinary 
moulds of American thought, give the nation new meas- 
ures of spiritual values, and set its face towards a new 
spiritual horizon? The impetus of magnanimous en- 
deavour and generous sacrifice in this conflict, will not 
cease when that conflict ends, but will carry America 
into the forefront of all great world movements from 
this time onwards. She has been finally called to a 
destiny quite other than that she had chosen for herself. 
Will not her future destiny be as strangely unlike, as 
widely away from what her statesmen announce and 



140 Patriotism and 

design for her to-day, as her present destiny is strangely 
unlike and widely away from the peaceful isolation 
that her statesmen announced and designed for her a 
few years ago ? Answer, prophetic soul of the wide 
world dreaming on things to come! 

When all this litter of fire and death is cleared 
away, will America again refurnish her home through- 
out as the sanctuary of perpetual peace, and persuade 
all the other nations to do likewise ? The nations will 
need but little persuasion. Amidst their smoking ruins, 
they will eagerly put faith in any scheme that promises 
to insure them against a future conflagration. Doubt- 
less, for a long immediate future, no nation will be 
foolish enough to carry a lighted torch amongst the 
ever-smouldering passions and jealousiea and ambi- 
tions of its neighbours. 

But if we examine the arguments in favour of a 
League of T^ations, we find that its advocates for the 
most part ignore all the difficulties of constituting it, 
and the yet greater and ever-increasing difficulties of 
working it. If they admit these difficulties, they offer 
no solution of them, and are content with some vague 
hope or assertion that they may or will be overcome. 
The sole reason that they give for forming their League 
is that it is eminently desirable. So desirable does it 
seem to them that, by hook or by crook, it must be 
made practicable. And the sole security that they can 
offer for its lengthened success is their opinion that the 
rivalries, ambitions, and enmities of all the peoples and 
races — those combative instincts and passions of man- 
kind which, in all times past, have been the catabolic 
forces in the world's economy, and which are now in 
a period of great activity — will, as soon as this war is 
over, die down, and be absorbed in an amiable inter- 



Popular Education 141 

nationalism. That is to say, that the governing proc- 
esses of civilization will, in the future, be merely an- 
abolic. 

We are evidently being swept towards a new form of 
civilization. What that civilization may be like in its 
main moral and spiritual aspects, I do not pretend to 
know. None of the many vanished civilizations that 
have flourished on this planet, has taken its general 
form from a design previously worked out by the brain 
of man. Speal^ing broadly, they have arisen, as it 
were, spontaneously, haphazardly. The rushing, clash- 
ing, many-coloured, many-shaped interests and aims of 
neighbouring nations have been shaken up in the ka- 
leidoscope, and a certain pattern of civilization has re- 
sulted. In all of these transformations, the desire or 
necessity of conquest by one or several of the nations, 
has been the leading conspicuous source of movement. 
The conscious aims and strivings of the nations have 
helped to form the pattern of civilization, but that pat- 
tern, as a whole, has been something quite different 
from what any statesman has planned, or any philoso- 
pher has prescribed. 

'Nor will the civilization of the future be fashioned 
according to any of the designs which we are now sub- 
mitting to the Eternal, as being what is obviously most 
desirable for mankind at the present juncture. Great- 
ly as we are concerned, we shall not be taken into His 
counsels on the matter, nor will He give heed to our 
valuable hints and suggestions. I care not much at any 
time whether I use the symbols of religion or the terms 
of science. The symbols of religion are often less la- 
boriously inaccurate than the strict definitions of sci- 
ence, and throw larger, bolder shadows of incommen- 
surable truths. 



142 Patriotism and 

Having probably made some slight advance upwards 
from monkeyhood in the course of the present civiliza- 
tion, and having assuredly gained an ever-increasing 
command of natural forces, we shall doubtless be al- 
lowed a greater apparent liberty of action within the 
confines of the approaching civilization. Being able 
to read a little further in ISTature's infinite book of se- 
crecy, we shall develop a larger measure of our old illu- 
sion that we are part authors of it. But the framework 
and design of that future civilization will be none of our 
choosing. They will be imposed upon us, and will be 
largely unforeseen by us. 

That future civilization will probably be, in many re- 
spects, a higher civilization than any the world has yet 
known. But this is by no means certain. At the pres- 
ent moment it promises to be a harder, drabber, more 
material, less spiritual civilization; less rich in beauty; 
robbed of many of the graces and charms of the past; 
robbed of leisure and distinction and ornament; a civi- 
lization where the artist will be murdered by the me- 
chanic. This may be only a transitory threat, but un- 
less we take care, we shall make this world a very dull 
place to live in. Who would not rather live in the Lon- 
don of Dickens than in one of the two hundred and 
fifty thousand model houses which the Government is 
proposing to build — that is, if the new Education Act 
can release a sufficient number of stout young masons 
and carpenters from the urgent necessity of learning 
all about Cicero. 

To return. Whatever form and complexion the ap- 
proaching civilization may take, we may be quite sure 
that we shall soon find it to be something quite differ- 
ent in many of its larger aspects and tendencies, from 
anything that we may now consciously design, or ami- 



Popular Education 143 

ably desire. At present, under the stress of the illimi- 
table miseries and horrors of this war, we design to 
mould our future civilization on a basis of perpetual 
universal concord guaranteed by a League of JSTations. 
It is assumed that by this compact wars can be made to 
cease, and that this condition of things will be static, 
and will be unassailable by all the imperious wash and 
sway and flux of human affairs outside. 

It is clear that, if our future civilization is to be 
founded on this basis, it can have no permanence and 
can give us no security and prosperity, unless as a mat- 
ter of fact, wars do cease from this time. 

There are four general states of world civilization, 
either of which is possible, and one of which must 
be realized, during that period of the future which we 
axe concerned to anticipate, and to prepare for, by shap- 
ing our national policy in accordance with it. 

(1) A state of world-civilization in which war is 
wholly abolished from this time. 

(2) A state of world-civilization in which war 
arises over small areas, with diminishing frequency, 
and with diminishing violence, until at no distant date 
it dies out from sheer inanition, because the passions 
and instincts of mankind that formerly provoked it, 
have also died out in the meantime. That is to say, 
all the nations will not only have resolved to be wise for 
all of the time, but will have leapt their resolution, and 
wiU have veritably and demonstrably attained beati- 
tude in this respect. 

These two states of civilization have some kinship, 
and the national policy and general legislation that will 
be suitable to one of them, will in some measure be 
suitable to the other. 

(3) A state of world-civilization in which war arises, 



144 Patriotism and 

with diminishing frequency, but over large areas, and 
with increasing violence, owing to the long restraint 
and suppression of those fundamental instincts and 
passions of mankind which provoke it, and the con- 
sequent accumulation of inflammable materials, both 
in the hearts of men, and in their political and eco- 
nomical surroundings. 

(4) A state of world-civilization, which, however 
different it may be in its outer garb and manifestations 
from our present and all preceding civilizations, is yet 
virtually the same in respect of its fairly constant al- 
ternations of peace and war, due to the fact that the 
fundamental instincts and passions of mankind have 
not changed, but continue to find the same outlet that 
they have found in all the past experience of our race. 
These two latter states of civilization are nearly akin, 
and are scarcely distinguishable from each other. The 
national policy and general legislation that will be 
suitable to one of them will be mainly suitable to the 
otlior. 

Except these four, no general state of world civili- 
zation is possible, or even conceivable. One of these 
four states must issue from our present situation. To 
meet the demands and exigencies of one of these four 
general states, the statesmen of each of the nations 
must begin to shape their foreign policy as soon as 
this war is ended. Which of these four states is most 
likely to issue from our existing circumstances ? 

Judging from all past history, and from the instincts 
and passions of mankind as they are at this moment 
displaying themselves, does it not seem improbable in 
the highest degree that the first of these states of world 
civilization will be realized? Is it not almost as im- 



Popular Education 145 

probable that the second of these states will be realized 
in any period of time that concerns us ? 

But, putting aside all estimates of the future that 
are founded upon experience of the past, and upon 
our knowledge of human nature, let us ask what will 
be the actual condition of the world's affairs after the 
war. The merest glance shows us that the whole sur- 
face of the planet will be littered with combustible 
matter. Apart altogether from the war, all the world's 
social forces are in disorder. Capital and labour, na- 
tional and international finance, economic systems and 
tariffs, the relation of the sexes, the allotment and ex- 
ercise of political power, the authority of religion, the 
status of the coloured races — every one of these world 
social forces is in a state of treacherous and perilous 
inflammability. Every one of them is a possible cause 
of war, or a possible auxiliary cause of war; one or 
two of them have provoked wars in the past, and seem 
likely to cause more or less bloodshed in the future. 
Before a peaceful path can be assured for world civi- 
lization, every one of them must be adjusted and con- 
trolled, and brought to some sort of an agreement. Is 
it likely that all these vexed questions will be perma- 
nently settled by referring them to national and inter- 
national committees ? All otherwise to me my thoughts 
portend. 

If we will but forsake our whimsies, and look stead- 
ily at the facts that are before our eyes, do they offer 
us any security that from this time, or within any 
measurable stretch of the future, the first or second 
states of general world-civilization will be realized, and 
that war will be finally abolished from the earth ? Does 
not a survey of the main facts and tendencies, and of 



146 Patriotism and 

the social conditions prevailing in every country, press 
upon us the same conclusion that has heen forced upon 
us by our experience of all the past, and by our knowl- 
edge of human nature as it has always manifested itself, 
and as it is manifesting itself to-day? 

If he would be a bold and foolish man who should 
affirm that it is utterly impossible for wars to cease 
from this time, unlikely and incredible as that seems, 
how crazy beyond all dreamers in Bedlam, would that 
man be who, with all these facts and considerations 
before him, should affirm that war will never again 
break out upon this planet ! Is it not enormously prob- 
able that, however much we may be able to guide the 
shape of that world civilization which we are approach- 
ing, it will be some form of either the third or the 
fourth of those that I have enumerated ; that is to say, 
it will be one in which war will be liable to break out at 
any time, and will be sure to break out at some time or 
the other ? 

A great weight of public opinion is demanding that' 
our national policy shall be shaped upon the assumption 
that the future world-civilization will be either the first 
or the second of the states I have enumerated, and that 
war will be entirely abolished either from this time, or 
within some easily measurable compass of years. 

And the permanency of this wholly pacific state of 
world-civilization is to be assured by the contrivances 
and decrees of a League of Nations. We have no ex- 
perience of the working of such a tribunal, except such 
as we may have gained from the disastrous failure of 
the Hague Conference to prevent this war, and from 
the ominous fact that it tied our hands and tripped our 
feet in the early stages of the conflict. All the pro- 
moters of a League of ^N^ations allow that its constitu- 



Popular Education 147 

tion is beset with enormous difficulties, and none of 
them can offer us any better assurance for its success- 
ful working than what is afforded by the hope of con- 
stant international amiability and wisdom. Will it be 
safe, will it be prudent, to hang the whole weight of our 
great destiny on the slender thread of security that a 
Leagiie of ISTations will be able to prevent war in the 
future ? This is what we are asked to do by a powerful 
and gathering force of public opinion. 

If we are not again to drift aimlessly on confused and 
contrary tides of events, making risky accommodations 
and compromises with inexorable forces; if we are not 
again to put our trust in chance to pull us through, we 
are called upon this day to shape and declare a firm, 
clear, national policy, either in accordance with the 
belief that war will be extinct or negligible in the future 
world-civilization, or on the other hand in the belief 
war will be liable to recur with something of the same 
frequency and violence in the future as it has done in 
the past. If we shape our national policy in accord- 
ance with the former of these alternative beliefs, that 
policy will tend towards an Internationalism which will 
gradually break down the highly complicated structure 
of laws, habits, customs, institutions, and common na- 
tional interests that now holds us together in unity, as 
a living social organism amongst other social organisms. 
If we shape our national policy in accordance with the 
latter of these alternative beliefs, that policy will tend 
towards a Patriotism which will harden and confirm 
and strengthen our highly complicated structure of laws, 
habits, customs, institutions, and common national in- 
terests, and will render it capable of further growth 
and development. !N'o clear, resolute, effective national 
policy can be imagined unless it accepts, and acts upon. 



146 Patriotism and Education 

one or the other of these alternative beliefs, and is 
shaped and pursued towards one or the other of these 
alternative ends. 

After much groping and wandering in tangled ways, 
with the hope of finding and beating a plain sure path 
for coming footsteps to tread, we emerge from our ob- 
scurities and perplexities, and stand in clear open 
ground on the top of the hill. There, plain in front of 
us, are the two signposts, bearing their inscriptions in 
the largest, boldest letters, so that every wayfarer may 
read. They point and urge our nation in opposite di- 
rections. On the one is written, "To Internationalism." 
On the other is written "To Patriotism." 



CHAPTEE V 

{Sept.—Oot.—Nov. 1918) 

Patriotism and Internationalism 

Apology to the Minister of Education for continuing to address 
him — The neglected Hampstead missionary — Aims of Interna- 
tionalism before the war — No danger of war — The good Scheide- 
mann would prevent it — The Great Illusionist — The meddling old 
warrior — Our sagacious internuncio — Crash! The war comes — 
What shall we do with our opinions now? — Socialists' forecasts 
falsified — They forsake their comrades and their whimsies to de- 
fend their country — Patriotism, a compulsive imiversal instinct 
— Compared with the maternal and religious instincts — Incip- 
ient Patriotism at East and West Gawkham — Engrafted Pa- 
triotism — "Reconstruction" a misleading term — Nations cannot 
be "reconstructed" — Internationalists ignore this — The parable 
of the old township and Mr. Fervent Impossiblist — The general 
aim and design of Internationalists and Socialists — Who are the 
real enemies of the working classes of each nation? — Interna- 
tionalism strikes athwart all social structure — Internationalists 
and Bolshevism — ^Mr. H. G. Wells gets a grip on Bolshevism 
and interprets it to us — Mr. Wells gets a grip on the situation 
in Russia — Mr. Wells gets a grip on the situation in Africa — 
Mr. Wells, like Sangrado, has a panacea — Mr. Wells allows the 
British flag to wave and sometimes to flap — Examination of Mr. 
Wells' African constitution — Mr. Wells threatens the Solomon 
Islands — Mr. Wells prophesies delightfully about machines — Goes 
on to prophesy about mankind — Defence of Mr. Wells against Mr. 
Archibald Spofforth — Mr. Wells and Old Moore — Gorgeous sym- 
bolism in prophecy — Scarlet ladies of Babylon and seven-headed 
beasts — ^The sacred jigsaw puzzle — Common defects and fallacies 
of Internationalist schemes — Alternations of commercial con- 
flict and actual war — Commercial conflict perhaps the more 
deadly — Our interest in sustaining the British Empire — Our For- 
eign OflBce "bunglers and blufi'ers" —Where are the perfectly wise 
Statesmen to work these perfectly wise International scheme^? — 

149 



150 Patriotism and 

Tendency of Labour to displace its constructive leaders — Who are 
the men that finally come to the top? — Appeal to Labour not 
to wreck and destroy the Empire that it has saved and forti- 
fied — New nations will be increasingly patriotic — Will press their 
own separate aims, interests, and ambitions — Watered-down In- 
ternationalism — Dulce et decorum est contra patria^m mori — 
Sympathy with constructive Socialism — Greater proportion of 
physically unfit in England than in Germany or France — Our 
social incubator for hatching and cherishing wastrels — Digres- 
sion to Miss Marie Corelli and Cicero — Return to argument on 
Patriotism — Again the two signposts — Clear thinkers who think 
wrongly — Internationalism always destructive, Patriotism al- 
ways constructive — Proposal for amalgamation of our planetary 
system with that of Sirius — The Interstellarists — Instinct of 
Patriotism universal — Our Pacifists superabundantly endowed 
with it — Pacifism and Internationalism perversions of the in- 
stinct of Patriotism — Patriotism and fire insurance — Renewed 
fruitless appeal to Minister of Education — Elementary drilling of 
our boys the safest and cheapest way to red.ice our armaments — ■ 
Also best physical and moral training for the boys themselves — 
A glance at the National Debt and at the little cherub who sits 
up aloft. 



T HAVE strayed so far from my original intention 
•■■ in writing this letter to you, and have treated of 
80 many matters that are outside your immediate con- 
cern and jurisdiction, that I feel some apology is due 
to you, sir, for continuing to address you. The only 
excuse I can offer to myself, is that your position is 
merely an honorary one, and that, as I reminded you 
at the start, you are not under the least obligation to 
pay any attention to me. But I have an uneasy sus- 
picion that, unless I can detain you as an imaginary 
hearer, I shall be left entirely without an audience. 
This is what has happened to mo in respect of what I 
have written about the English drama. For thirty-five 
years I have begged my countrymen to take an intel- 
ligent interest in their theatre, to make it a place of 
wise amusement instead of a child's toyshop and the 



Popular Education 151 

playground of licentious tomfoolery. I cannot flatter 
myself that they have paid the least attention to what 
I have said, for to-day the English theatre and the Eng- 
lish drama are — as I have described them in the earlier 
part of this letter. Nor can I hope to be more success- 
ful in reaching their ears, now that I am treating of 
matters of such supreme importance that the lasting 
welfare and safety of this empire depend upon our 
clearly understanding and rightly managing them. 

On Sunday mornings before the war, sauntering 
throngs were wont to frequent the open space near the 
pond at the top of Hampstead Heath, there to fill their 
lungs with fresh air, and their minds with alfresco 
political convictions. Seven large crowds were usually 
gathered round seven loud-voiced orators of both sexes, 
who were bawling out seven varied and conflicting kinds 
of turbulent social doctrine. Hard by, was a gentle, 
soft-voiced evangelist, with a modest unassuming mien, 
in whom I detected a strong resemblance to myself. He 
was reading quietly and unobtrusively from the Bible, 
and wisely refraining from making any comment of his 
own. On many Sunday mornings in those ancient 
times, I passed by this meek, unpretentious teacher, and 
never once found him with so much as a single, casual, 
heedless listener. This discouraged him not a jot. Con- 
vinced of the value and importance of his message, he 
persistently read on. "With your knowledge and ex- 
perience of the level to which Popular Education has 
raised the literary tastes of the masses, you will easily 
understand, sir, that while the loud crude jargon of the 
social pulpiteers drew large approving groups of hear- 
ers, the finest passages of St. Paul and Isaiah could not 
catch the momentary attention of one passing idler. 

As the Sunday mornings went by without bringing 



152 Patriotism and 

him a solitary adherent, I became more and more inter- 
ested in this sheepless shepherd. I found myself hop- 
ing, that by a lucky chance, or even by a special inter- 
vention of Providence in so good a cause, he would one 
day be rewarded by the notice of some stray lounger or 
inquisitive urchin, or by gaining the ear of the police- 
man on parade, whose public duty might well allow him 
an occasional digression into spiritual affairs on a Sun- 
day morning. Vainly did I wait for even so small a 
measure of popular recognition for this neglected dis- 
penser of weighty truths and heavenly wisdom. The 
floating, chattering Sunday throngs went heedlessly by 
him, and he never detached a single hearer from the 
adjacent expounders of variegated social and political 
philosophy. Still he read on, impregnably indifferent 
to the impregnable indifference of the crowd. 

I felt a growing sympathy with this rejected little 
missionary. The decay of a living credible religion in 
England had placed him in even more forlorn circum- 
stances than the decay of a living credible drama had 
placed myself. And his response to the neglect of the 
public was the same as my own — an unwearied reitera- 
tion of the truth to unheeding ears. I had the same 
lively compassion for him that I had for myself. My 
fellow feeling moved me to lend him some countenance. 
I would occasionally loiter for a few minutes to become 
the solitary recipient of his ministrations, thus giving 
him, I hope, some faint impression of having an audi- 
ence. 

I must admit that his elocution was deplorably bad, 
being scarcely above the level of what is usually heard 
in fashionable West End theatres. But if his manner 
was deficient, his matter was excellent. He would 
choose, first perhaps a chapter from Komans, and with- 



Popular Education 153 

out any personal exposition of its theology, pass to one 
of the Psalms, and then to the leaping ecstasies of the 
second Isaiah, or to the golden and jewelled precepts of 
Proverbs, or the dark wonder wisdom of Job. The 
mellow cadences of the dead prophets and dreamers who 
for centuries have shown mankind the way of life, 
sounded strangely out of tune with the loud harsh clap- 
per notes of the noisy new prophets, who were dinning 
quite other kinds of doctrine into the ears of the crowds 
across the gi*een. A cannon, with its surrounding piles 
of shrapnel, has displaced the pulpits of the strident so- 
cial orators, and spouting forth more convincing mat- 
ter, has, for the time, dispersed their doctrines. 

I hope, sir, you will be so obliging as to lend me your 
countenance for a little while longer, and allow me the 
comforting illusion of having an audience. I cannot 
pretend that what I am offering you, has the value and 
authority of the lofty messages which my fellow mis- 
sionary punctually delivered every Sunday morning to 
his imaginary hearers. I fear, too, that my words may 
be as ill adapted to your frame of mind, as the admoni- 
tions of Solomon were to the tastes of the Sunday 
crowds ; and that you may show yourself as indifferent 
to conversion as the Hampstead policeman. But having, 
like my despised evangelist, succeeded in persuading 
myself of the importance of my utterances, I trust you 
will be generous enough to accord me the continued 
privilege of addressing them to you. 

This need not be any tax upon your time or your pa- 
tience. I do not expect you to pay any more attention 
to what I am now saying, than you have paid to what 
I said in the earlier parts of my letter. For by the 
passing of your Education Bill, I notice that our young 
carpenters, from sixteen to eighteen, are stiU to be oc- 



154 Patriotism axiS 

cupied with Cicero and algebra, rather than in making 
convenient doors and windows for their fellow work- 
men ; and that our crowds of theatre-goers are not to be 
diverted from their preference for vulgar nonsense, by 
any such guidance towards a love and appreciation of 
Shakespeare as you might have given them, by afford- 
ing opportunities for suitable education to our young 
actors and actresses. 

In these circumstances, I may reaffirm the wholly 
formal and honorary nature of your position at the head 
of this letter — a position which is not less dignified than 
that of the British Lion in the Royal Arms on a shop- 
front, and which does not require its occupant to con- 
cern himself with the transactions taking ^lace inside 
the shop, or to be responsible for the quality of the 
wares displayed. Nothing more is required of him, 
than to preserve a correct attitude of obvious and lofty 
detachment from the proceedings. 

With this disclaimer of any intention to waste your 
time, or capture your approbation, I station myself 
again at the cross roads where the two opposing sign- 
posts stand, the one pointing our people to Internation- 
alism, the other to Patriotism. 

Before the war, there was in all countries an ever- 
increasing number of men who persuaded themselves 
that the rivalries and enmities and conflicting interests 
of the nations, might be smoothed and finally submerged 
in a general amiable Internationalism, by the declared 
wills of all the peoples. It was so obvious that the 
working classes of all countries had more to gain by 
seizing and dividing the large stock of accumulated cap- 
ital in the world, than by fighting amongst themselves 
to destroy it, that nothing more was needed to start 
them on this track, than to point out to them the gay 



Popular Education 155 

garden paradise awaiting their occupation at the end of 
it. Accordingly, Internationalism flourished exceed- 
ingly before the war. Large masses of our own people 
transferred the loyalty and allegiance they had instinc' 
tively felt for the country of their birth, to that much 
more admirably-managed International State, where 
everybody would have his Rights, where equal posses- 
sions and boundless plenty would be assured to all, and 
where Justice, Truth, Liberty, and Peace would reign 
perpetually. What temptation had anyone to remain 
an Englishman, when, by merely skipping over a few 
inconvenient obstructive facts, he could become the 
citizen of such a country ? 

Seeing that it was eminently desirable that this Inter- 
national State should be established without bloodshed, 
it was decided that no war should take place. One or 
two kings might have to be gently, or even somewhat 
forcibly, pushed off their thrones, if they declined to 
dwindle into evanescence; some more or less extensive 
civil disturbances and riots might take place, and a few 
obstinate people who refused to have sensible ideas, 
might have to be shot down. All other little difficulties 
could be successfully negotiated as we went along. The 
desirability of this International State being so obvious, 
all that we had to do was to keep on voting for it, and 
it would gradually come into being. Certainly there 
was no need to apprehend any outbreak of war amongst 
the nations, for the sufficient reason that this would 
upset all our plans. And having arranged for rations 
of universal happiness on a very liberal scale, accord- 
ing to indisputable pet formulas of our own, what could 
be more annoying than to have all our plans upset by 
an irrelevancy like war ? 

It was true that Germany was throwing milliona 



156 Patriotism and 

upou millions of men into her army, and building a for- 
midable fleet. What of that ? That was Germany's 
own business. Our business was to keep down our army 
to such negligible numbers as could give no possible 
provocation to Germany. By this means we should 
avoid war, and, what was more important, prevent our 
plans from being upset. 

Besides, was not the good Scheidemann over there, 
fast locked with us, not in the loose brotherhood of 
blood, but in that fast brotherhood which binds together 
men who hold the same opinions upon abstract matters. 
It is written, there is a friend that sticketh closer than 
a brother. And who can that friend be, but the man 
who holds the same sensible ideas about politics, or re- 
ligion, or vaccination, or the monistic theory, that we 
ourselves hold ? The good Scheidemann and his nu- 
merous fellows could never be brought to fight with 
actual guns and swords, the dear comrades who, side by 
side with them, were fighting and conquering the rest 
of the world with words and theories. 'Nol No! If 
ever the day should come when the good Scheidemann 
and our comrades over there were commanded to plunge 
their swords in our breasts, they would throw them 
down in flat defiance and fall upon our necks, and bru- 
tal militarism would slink away baffled and defeated. 
That anything else could happen was incredible, for it 
would upset all our plans. Therefore let us take no 
notice of the fact that Germany is arming to her last 
man. "We may safely leave it all in the hands of the 
good Scheidemann, for does he not hold the same opin- 
ions as ourselves ? 

And most opportunely to confirm our opinions and to 
further our plans, a writer appears, who, by lucid and 
most irrefragable arguments, proves that war with Ger- 



Popular Education 157 

many is impossible, prophetically calling his hook "The 
Great Illusion," This is the man after our own hearts. 
Here is one endowed even more than ourselves with 
political vision and insight keen enough to pierce 
through all brick walls of fact. How can we sufficiently 
honour him? What will be his most appropriate re- 
ward ? We will make him a life member of the iN'a- 
tional Liberal Club. What less can we do for the man 
who incontrovertibly proves that war with Germany is 
impossible, than to give him the perpetual freedom of 
those marble halls? lor how can we, busy as we are, 
shaping the future according to our plans, be expected 
to know that by some little flaw in his arguments, or by 
some little failure of facts to adjust themselves to our 
opinions, a war with Germany will come crashing down 
upon us in a few months ? And, alas ! one of the direst 
consequences of that war will be that the Government 
will seize our marble halls for its prosecution, and will 
drive us and our great illusionist to find shelter else- 
where. 

Meantime, what is to be done with the doting old 
alarmist, who would upset all our plans by telling the 
country from his certain knowledge and ripe experi- 
ence, that this war with Germany is imminent, inevita- 
ble, and is imploring the country to prepare for it ? Let 
us pay no heed to him. Let us forget that he has spent 
all the days of his long and blameless life in unselfish, 
untiring devotion to our defence and security, from that 
far-off time when he thrice planted our flag upon the 
mess-house at Lucknow, to those dark months a dozen 
years ago when he rescued the Empire from the impend- 
ing disaster which was threatening it through our for- 
mer folly and negligence. And will he now give the 
remnant of his strength, and spend his last breath to 



158 Patriotism and 

spread this pestilent heresy of mistrust and ill-feeling 
towards our good neighbour, Germany? Happily our 
gi*eat, sensible public holds the same opinions as our- 
selves, and is in no mood to listen to his unwelcome 
warnings. But cannot he be silenced ? For if he awak- 
ens the country to its danger, it will upset all our plans. 
"Will nobody bid the aged mischief-monger cease his ir- 
ritating prattle? 
y Ah! here comes another man after our own hearts, 

who speaks with full authority and intimate knowledge 
of that dear land of enlightenment and benevolence, 
who finds its atmosphere so congenial that he has chosen 
it for his spiritual home, and who knows the minds 
of its rulers. For have they not with keen discernment 
of his character, made him the envoy of their goodwill 
towards us, their accredited go-between to soothe away 
any premature suspicions that may begin to buzz in our 
drowsy bewildered noddles? It is true, as he shall 
afterwards tell us in proof of his own discernment, that 
his own suspicions were aroused, and that he felt some 
alarm at what he saw and heard amongst his spiritual 
co-mates. But shall that move him to give even as much 
as a timely caution to his countrymen, and put them on 
their guard ? 'No ! he will continue to bring us bland 
and honeyed messages of conciliation, and treacherous 
assurances of peace, l^or need we much trouble now 
to ask whether the indestructible label that Time shall 
fasten upon him will be "Dupe of Germany" or "De- 
luder of England." 

But here he comes, fresh from Germany, the authen- 
tic harbinger of loving communion between the two 
nations, who, with his superior knowledge of her rulers' 
benign intentions towards us, shall quickly stop the 
mouth of this tiresome, garrulous veteran. It migtt be 



Popular Education 159 

well to pour ridicule on the pertinacious old meddler, 
and taunt him with knowing nothing of his own busi- 
ness. Excellent! Our sagacious internuncio has op- 
portunely turned the tables on the mischievous old war- 
rior, and has adapted the European situation to the 
necessities of our political and social plans. We may 
safely trust his sound judgment in this matter, for 
does he not hold the same opinions as ourselves ? And 
now we can go on arranging the future to our liking 
— Crash ! The cannons are thundering from one end of 
Europe to the other. Could anything be more annoy- 
ing? 

And what shall we do with our opinions now ? 

Some few of us will change them, having belatedly 
come to the conclusion that it is safer to found opin- 
ions upon facts, than to trust that facts will adjust 
themselves to our opinions. 

Some more of us will certainly not change our opin- 
ions because they happen to be in conflict with facts. 
Rather shall that be a reason for holding our opinions 
all the more doggedly. Yes, and we have conscience, 
too ! And a conscience so nicely tuned, so obedient to 
our will, that we must needs hold its dictates to be in- 
fallible. Our conscience shall command us to hold fast 
to our opinions, and to cherish them all the more stub- 
bornly, the more they are proved to be wrong. This war 
has upset all our plans for shaping a desirable future 
for mankind. We will take our revenge on the war by 
upsetting it. We will thwart its prosecution by every 
device we can imagine. We will distort facts; we will 
spread delusions ; we will defame our countrymen ; we 
will invent excuses for the enemy, and condone his hell- 
ish infamies. We will foment disaffection and strikes; 
we will protest against conscription, and delay it till 



160 Pati'i(jtisni iind 

it may bo too late. Wo will uliako ilio rraolvition of the 
people, and W(i will vv(iuk(!ii (,li(!i liaiid.H of tlio (jlovern- 
mont. Wo will ofTor oiii- ciiihiiKHw to llio pi;ood Sclioide- 
inann ; wo will iiitri^iu! to <i,(!t inlo coinimiiiicalion with 
him, for dooH lio iiol, hold Iho .sairio opiriioiirt as our- 
selves ?' We will greedily seize every (tliaiuio of l)riiiji;ing 
ahont an i^nohlo jx^Kto, oi- an (finally w(^l(u)iiio dcleat. 
What do wo <tai(i llioii^li (Mvili/atioii in l)la/iii<jj l,o ruins, 
and though every one of uh may bo Hold into gi-inding 
slavery? Shall that be a rcjanon for changing our opin- 
ions 'i 

And the rest of us, who liad also prepared a busy 
programmo of soeial and ])oliti(^d i-cfornis just suited to 
the j)i'esHiiig netids of tlu! people -what sliall wo do with 
our opinions? I<\)r it, scioms that the pressing needs of 
the people are for guns and slxdls, and uum trained to 
slaught(!r — just the juiscliii^vouH and evil tilings that wo 
have all along counselled llu^ni to do without. Clearly, 
our opinions, tliongh they u'ere (exactly suited to the 
conditions and eircumstanees that we desired, are not 
at all suited to (ho conditions and circumstances in 
wliieh we find ourselves. 

Sueli an admirable, well-considered set of opinions, 
too! And enforced by such a wealth of convincing ar- 
gnmcMit, and such a ])owerfully organi/ed (raucus. It 
would bo a pity to waste siuth a valuable set of opinions, 
after all the trouble we have taken to form Lhem. Still 
wo must own tlu^y aro out of ae('or<l with very palpable 
and distiossing facts. When our homes aro being 
bond)cd, and starvation is possible, when the country is 
threat(!ned with invasion and pillage, Patriotism bo- 
comes a temporary duty. Ami wo will loyally fulfil 
that duty to our uttermost. This need not prevent us 
from running our opinions alongside of our Patriot- 



Popular Education 161 

ism, trusting that in tlio present confusion the incon- 
gruity will not bo apparent. Happily, we have suc- 
ceeded in getting our opinions largely accepted as per- 
manent political gospel, and we may be sure that when 
once an opinion gets into a man's head, he is not going 
to dislodge it, merely because it is out of harmony with 
facts. We will therefore regard the war as a tiresome 
interlude, a disagreeable suspension of our political 
activities. When it is over, we can throw our Patriot- 
ism overboard. For what need will there bo for Patri- 
otism in a world which will be regulated by our opin- 
ions? 

ludeed, the more wo contemplate the future, the 
brighter is the outlook for our opinions. For as soon as 
the war is comfortably past, it will be clear to every- 
body that were it not for this pernicious vice of Patriot- 
ism, there would be no wars at all. Away with it, then, 
and let us work heart and soid for Internationalism, 
and the millennium that will accompany it. And sure- 
ly if ever mankind deserved a millennium, it will be 
after this war. 'Not only do they deserve it, but they 
are evidently resolved to get it. And how can they get 
it, but by the wide diffusion and acceptance of our opin- 
ions? And how wonderfully our opinions are adapted 
to a millennium, and precisely to that kind of millen- 
nium which is most desirable for mankind in their 
present circumstances! Let us stick to our opinions, 
then, and furbish them up with a few new phrases, se- 
cure that when peace is declared, they will meet with 
almost universal acceptance. 

For many years before the war, a growing body of 
political opinion had declared itself in favour of So- 
cialism and Internationalism. The bulk of the Liberal 
party was in a process of absorption by its extreme elfif- 



162 Patriotism and 

ments, and was being gi-adually committed to princi- 
ples that, if they proved to be sound and workable, 
would lead to the domination of the world by Interna- 
tional Societies, and that, if they proved to be unsound 
and unworkable, would lead to universal anarchy. 
Roughly, the Liberals formed one party with groups of 
Labour Socialists and Internationalists, and the odd 
addition of Irish ISTationalists, whose only qualifications 
for political association with Internationalists were an 
even larger capacity for discontent, and an even more 
fatal facility in expressing it. 

The Socialists and Internationalists, though fewer in 
numbers, were gradually gaining the ascendancy of 
power in the party, because they were gradually gaining 
the ascendancy of power with the electors. There were 
various shades and forms of Socialism and Internation- 
alism. None of them could agree in any feasible con- 
structive scheme. But they all agreed that the present 
social structures of the various nations would have to 
be broken down, and the present forms of government 
destroyed, or rendered tributary to the supreme power 
of some sort of International Congress, which was to 
rule the civilized world in future. 

This was the avowed aim of the Socialists and Inter- 
nationalists ; and the Liberal party, from the exigen- 
cies of its position, was driven to lend them more or less 
countenance, and more or less to adopt their programme. 
We may say that the whole of the variegated, composite 
party was working towards Internationalism, though 
many of them may not have been awai'e of their desti- 
nation. It was not only the Germans who were pre- 
paring to dominate the world, and to enforce their regi- 
men upon it. The Socialists and Internationalists were 
also preparing to dominate the world, and to enforce 



Popular Education 168 

their regimen upon it. And the Socialists and Interna- 
tionalists were almost equally sure of success, whenever 
the trial should come. For they had clearly instructed 
their comrades that their true country was not the land 
of their birth which had treated them so scurvily, but 
that International State which would give them all they 
could desire, and which would arise as soon as the pres- 
ent obsolete social structures were demolished. And 
having ceaselessly drilled their comrades in allegiance 
to that International State, and sworn them to work for 
its speedy establishment, what would happen if war 
were declared between the nations ? The Socialists and 
Internationalists would proclaim their solidarity, throw 
down their arms, and refuse to fight each other. Those 
who expected dear comrades who held the same opin- 
ions to cut each other's throats, would find themselves 
gi'ievously mistaken, and would be put to the rout. 
After perhaps a few feeble splutterings, the projected 
war would fizzle out for lack of material to nourish it. 

Some such result was confidently expected by Social- 
ists and Internationalists to follow any attempt to cause 
fratricidal strife between the enrolled citizens of that 
new world commonwealth, whose foundations they had 
80 well and truly laid on the ruined and obliterated 
landmarks of extinct Patriotism. 

What did really happen ? 

As soon as war was declared, the Socialists and Inter- 
nationalists immediately split into strictly national 
groups, and rushed to defend their respective flags. And 
excepting small minorities, they have been amongst the 
loudest and bravest defenders of the countries of their 
birth. Jaures, who had opposed the three years' mili- 
tary service bill for France, recanted when the Ger- 
mans were swarming towards her frontiers. Even the 



164 Patriotism and 

witty, miscliievous, impudent Impossiblist, who had 
tried to boss the British Empire by proving that every- 
body in it, except himself, was hopelessly wrong upon 
every subject — even he was obliged to make some show 
of loyalty to the stupid country that had applauded his 
antics in times of peace, but was not quite stupid enough 
to tolerate them, when, to the delight of his German 
friends, he stabbed her in her hour of darkest need. 

And the good Seheidemann and his followers over 
there? Instead of throwing down their arms, what do 
they do but prove themselves to be the sturdiest of 
patriots, voting constant supplies to their robber gov- 
ernment to carry on the most brutal war against their 
French and British comrades, and to murder helpless 
women and children ? And to-day the recreant Seheide- 
mann is accusing Us, the Socialists of the Entente — 
Us, who hold the same opinions as himself — is accus- 
ing Us of being the cause of prolonging this devastating 
war. He fastens the guilt of continued bloodshed upon 
Us ! A man whom we had embraced in the sacred com- 
munion of International brotherhood! He brings this 
damning accusation against Us! We are sadly disap- 
pointed in Seheidemann. He is not the man we judged 
him to be. For when it comes to the push, he backs his 
own beloved country instead of backing his and our 
opinions. How shall we ever arrange the world to our 
liking, if men will go on backing their own countries 
against our opinions? And just as we had got them 
accepted as permanent political gospel by all the ad- 
vanced thinkers of all classes in all civilized countries! 
How is it that facts have played us such an uncivil 
trick ? How is it that they have so obstinately refused 
to conform to our opinions ? 

In all the affairs of life where the emotions are 



Popular Education 165 

brought into play, men's actions are guided by tbeir in- 
stincts rather than by their opinions. Patriotism is the 
most compulsive and most universal of all instincts, 
excepting those of sex and maternity. As surely as the ; 
phagocytes in my bloodstream will rush to defend me * 
when I am wounded, and will sacrifice themselves to 
make me whole, so surely will the men and women of a 
country leap to her flag when she is assaulted, and will 
willingly die that she may live. When an animal body 
grows old or corrupt, its own phagocytes turn upon it, 
and prey upon it, and hand it over to dissolution. When l 
a nation grows old or corrupt, its men and women be- / 
come seditious, and sap its strength, and hand it over ' 
to dissolution. How like sedition is to cancer ! 

ISTature gives us all the primal instincts in excess. 
They are so necessary for our preservation that she en- 
courages them to exaggeration. What single cause has 
worked more ravages and evil amongst mankind than 
the mad impulsions of the sexual instinct? ]^ot war 
itself has more horribly scarred and maimed humanity, 
filled more hospitals, violated more homes, strewn the 
pathway of our race with more wrecks and castaways. 
Yet I have never heard of anyone who proposed to abol- 
ish the sexual instinct, except my Aunt Julia, who 
maintains that Providence has scandalously misman- 
aged the whole business. The arguments whereby my 
Aunt Julia seeks to abolish the sexual instinct, run 
exactly parallel to the arguments whereby Interna- 
tionalists seek to abolish the instinct of Patriotism. All 
who have well-educated minds will hope that my Aunt 
Julia may be more successful than the Internationalists 
have been. 

The maternal instinct often turns to blind idolatry. 
It shows itself absurd, unreasoning, unreasonable, un- 



166 Patriotism and 

just, unscrupulous. It is nearly always tainted with 
these faults. But ugly as they are in themselves, these 
faults are but the shadows and inversions of the su- 
preme virtues of motherhood, infinite devotion, tender- 
ness, patience, forgiveness, exalted self-sacrifice. There 
are many estimable women without the maternal in- 
stinct. Nature disdains these superior creatures, pushes 
them aside, and commands them to perish. The mater- 
nal instinct is so valuable to our race, that Nature is 
careless how many faults she binds up with it. 

Again, take the permanent instinct of religion. It 
is so valuable to our race, that Nature seems to care 
little what stupidities men believe, so long as they be- 
lieve in something. Perhaps I should have said that 
God seems to care little what men believe, so long as 
they believe in something. But it would be dishonour- 
ing to God to make Him responsible for the religious 
beliefs of mankind — for instance, amongst other things, 
for the comic and virulent nonsense of the Athanasian 
Creed. It is more respectful to God to throw the blame 
for such things upon Nature, leaving the puzzling 
question of the distinction between God and Nature 
to offer us excellent material for future debate. 

Here I am sorely tempted to suggest a parallel be- 
tween the experts and expounders of religion, and the 
experts and expounders of other matters — shall we say 
of Education? But I abstain, and repel with suitable 
indignation any impertinent memory of Horace Wal- 
pole's rebuke to the expert and expounder of heraldry, 
"Why, you don't understand your own silly business!" 

Affirming, then, with passionate sincerity of convic- 
tion, the urgent need of a credible religion, it may be 
readily admitted that even the two hundred confused 
and contradictory forms of belief that we now profess 



Popular Education 167 

are better than no religion at all. Blank Atheism, blank 
denial, are condemned to sterility. We must establish 
relations with the Eternal. There are many honest, 
clear-thinking, highly-intellectual people who are with- 
out the religious instinct, but like the superior women 
who are without the maternal instinct, they pass away 
and leave no offspring. Mankind goes on believing — 
something. Religion is one of the primal necessary in- 
stincts. It springs up anew in every child. It is so 
valuable to our race, as the only surety for conduct, and 
the only builder of character, that Nature constantly 
replants it in our hearts, and is careless what stupidi- 
ties, bigotries, and cruelties she binds up with it. 

It is the same with the permanent universal instinct 
of Patriotism. It is so valuable to a nation that the j 
peoples who are without it, tend towards servitude and | 
decay, and are soon absorbed in neighbouring nations, ) 
who may be much lower in civilization, but have a 
stronger instinct of Patriotism. As religion tends to 
bind our private conduct into a consistent and effective 
unity, so does Patriotism tend to bind our national con- 
duct into a consistent and effective unity. 

May we not claim that Patriotism is not only valu- 
able and preservative to a nation in its dealings with 
other nations, but that it is also valuable and construe^ 
tively energizing to the human race as a whole ? It is 
by struggle and warfare against our nearest competitors 
and rivals, who are then subdued into co-operation and 
combination with us against our next nearest competi- 
tors and rivals — it is by means of these alternations of 
competition and co-operation, that we have raised our- 
selves from monkeyhood to a state of savagery, and 
from a state of savagery to our present level of civili- 
zation. This law of alternating competition and co- 



168 Patriotism and 

operation may be traced in its constant but very irregu- 
lar working, in all our affairs, and in all tbe past his- 
tory of our race. Wlien competition is once subdued, 
it leads to co-operation in mutual interests with our late 
competitors. Co-operation, in its turn, leads to a more 
enlarged form of competition, which, again, leads to a 
more enlarged and higher form of co-operation. Pa- 
triotism has always been an accessory to this alternative 
process as it works amongst nations. Is not Patriotism 
an instrument in the evolution of civilization ? And is 
it not therefore beneficial to the whole human race? 

When we compare Patriotism with such other primal 
necessary instincts as maternity and religion, we find 
that like them, it has the defects of its qualities. Like 
maternity, it often shows itself absurd, unreasoning, un- 
reasonable, unjust, unscrupulous. Like religion, it 
often shows itself stupid, bigoted, cruel, dishonest in 
thought and in practice. And beyond this, Patriotism 
often has an offensive blatancy and megalomania which 
are all its own. Patriotism is nearly always tainted 
with these faults. But ugly as they are in themselves, 
these faults are like those of motherhood, only the 
shadows and inversions, the seamy side of its virtues. 
And accordingly we find that Patriotism being so valu- 
able and necessary to the vigorous health and prosperity 
of a people, Nature seems to be careless how many 
faults and excesses she binds up with it in the na- 
tional character. 

But if Patriotism is valuable and necessary to a peo- 
ple, Justice and Humanity and the keeping of the 
great commandments are still more valuable and neces- 
sary. For unless these are reverenced and practised, 
human society falls to pieces. Only in the measure that 
these are reverenced and practised, does any unit of hu- 



Popular Education 169 

man society hold together. When a nation does away 
with the gi'eat commandments, and sacrifices them to 
its Patriotism, sooner or later they take their revenge, 
and bring that nation to ruin. If Germany had suo 
ceeded in gaining dominion over the whole world, she 
would never have been secure; for the whole world 
would have raised itseK in perpetual revolt against her, 
until finally, perhaps after generations of misery and 
bloodshed, she would have been brought down. It is 
Germany's crimes that have lost her the dominion of the 
world. Her Patriotism and discipline and industry 
would have won it for her. 

How potent, how compulsive, how possessive of the 
heart and soul of a people, how indestructible an instinct 
is Patriotism, is shown by Ireland. 

There is no thoughtful Irishman, who has examined 
the facts and finances of the British Exchequer, and 
who does not know that Ireland is the most favoured 
part of the United Kingdom. There is no thoughtful 
Irishman who does not know that to the extent that Ire- 
land is separated from England, to that extent Ireland 
will be impoverished and weakened, and handed over to 
the internal dissension. There is no thoughtful Irish- 
man who does not perceive that the entire separation of 
Ireland from Britain, would bring untold misery and 
economic ruin to his country, and would shake the 
entire structure of ordered government throughout 
Europe. There is no thoughtful Irishman who under- 
stands his countrymen, and does not foresee that within 
three years of separation from England, civil war would 
be raging over his land, and would have to be quelled 
by outside intervention. There is no thoughtful Irish- 
man who does not know that England stands waiting 
to disengage herself from Irish affairs to the utmost 



170 Patriotism and 

limit, and perhaps beyond the utmost limit, that is 
eompatible with the existence of social order, and the 
security of life and property in both countries. 

There is the map, which shows the two islands se- 
curely anchored within a few miles of each other. And 
there are the thousand, thousand ties of social interest, 
economic interest, trade, custom, language, and every 
day intercourse and relationship, which through cen- 
turies have grown round the lives of the two peoples, 
and which cannot be severed without tearing a mortal 
wound in the sides of both of them. 

Yet against all reason, all interest, all wisdom, against 
all argument, and all knowledge, this inextinguishable 
instinct of Patriotism possesses Ireland, and drives her 
to clamour unceasingly for fatal disruption. What 
Englishman is there, who, loving his own country, does 
not ungrudgingly sympathize with this wild adoring 
passion of her sons for Ireland ? What Englishman is 
there, who would not, if it were only possible, satisfy 
it to the full, give Ireland the cursed gift of a separate 
destiny, and pityingly, reluctantly, cruelly, loose her 
to drift or crash to her doom ? 

But there is the map. The two countries cannot 
be wrenched asunder. And there are hostages on each 
Bide who cannot be stifled, or betrayed to persecution 
and extinction by the foes of their own household. 

Every Home Rule Bill that has yet been devised, is 
now clearly seen to have been unworkable — an instru- 
ment of further disagreement and embroilment. And 
■will we now concert some new scheme of lavish con- 
cessions, and paper obligations, and juggling compro- 
mises and instalments of progressive dismemberment — 
yet one more unworkable abortion to breed new con- 
fusions and dissensions between the two countries ? 



Popular Education 171 

Will we never face tlie plain issue, and own to our- 
selves that there is no middle way between irrevocable 
separation, and Federal Parliaments, giving full play 
and encouragement to the local patriotism of each 
division of the United Kingdom — a Kingdom that must 
be united ; either United in gathering peace and security 
and prosperity to itself under one compact, sovereign, 
central authority, or as surely United in rendering 
itself a common prey to internal disorganization, and 
external assault, and passing through successions of 
strife and misery and bloodshed, to the same goal of a 
common dissolution and destruction. There is the map. 
A United Kingdom it must remain. 

If Federal Parliaments will not solve the question, 
then it can only be solved in blood. But Ireland will 
not be content with a Federal Parliament. Hear a 
wise word from Goethe. In 1829 the British Parlia- 
ment had already begun its blind, hopeless, perennial 
task of curing the woes of Ireland. "Give Ireland 
Catholic Emancipation," was then the cry, "And she 
will be pacified." Said Goethe to Ekermann: "This 
we can see. Ireland suffers from evils that will not be 
cured by any means, and therefore, of course not by 
Emancipation. It has hitherto been unfortunate for 
Ireland to endure her evils alone ; it is now unfortunate 
England is also drawn into them." [Sage of Weimar, 
you said then the final word.] 

What welter of seditions, and brawls, and enmities, 
what gusts and tempests of rebellions, what barren 
martyrdoms, what harvests of misery and despair, what 
alternations of assassins' plots and politicians' dodgeries, 
what wildernesses of talk in Parliament, and what 
deluge of words in the Press, what multifarious shifts 
and evasions, and intrigues and treacheries, have we 



172 Patriotism and 

since passed througli, only to find ourselves thwarted, 
and baffled, and impotent, with Ireland still nursing 
against us hatred and revenge; more stubbornly re- 
solved not to be pacified than when Goethe threw his 
illuminating beam upon her desolation a hundred years 
ago! 

Is there, as Goethe said, no cure for the woes of Ire- 
land ? Then England must needs continue to bear 
them with her ; must take upon her own aching shoulders 
the greater part of the burden; with constant, forbear- 
ing, sisterly love, with inexhaustible patience and ever- 
ready help, must steadfastly, unflinchingly refuse to 
deal out skimble-skamble, piecemeal separation and 
sham pacification, with their certain deadly recoil at 
the hearts of both nations. 

Kathleen, sister Kathleen, most wilful, most per- 
verse, and yet most dearly loved, and dearly lovable of 
all this human family, will you never forget our cruel 
treatment of you in years that have long gone by ? In 
deep abasement, deeper than your sorrows, in contrition 
heaped up higher than we heaped your wrongs, we own 
that we injured and oppressed you beyond forgiveness ; 
and yet do supplicate your forgiveness, that we may heal 
your wounds that our hands have made, and wipe away 
your tears that we caused to flow. 

That sacred fire of never-dying love for your coun- 
try — ^we would not quench it, Kathleen. We would but 
contain it on its own hearth, that it may not be fanned 
by these outside, wild world gTists and spread its fury 
till it burns down both our homes. 

Old things have passed away. In this new perilous 
world, we need each other's love and support. Great 
need we have of you, Kathleen. Far greater need you 
have of us. 



Popular Education 173 

Will you still multiply your miseries, and add to 
your afflictions, and increase your poverty, by staying 
apart from us? Will you remain wedded to calamity, 
and mortgaged to despair ? 

Look back upon your yesterdays, all filled witb fruit- 
less controversies and strifes; with the wreckage of 
your delusions, and the ruins of your hopes ; with blind 
hatreds and revenges against us, and treasons against 
yourself ; with vain bewailings of your fate, and desper- 
ate wrestlings to escape from it — one long, unceasing 
tale of feckless stratagems, plots, insurrections and re- 
volts, told over and over again, with hideous repetition 
and persistent emphasis of defeat. 

And will you now write that history all over again ? 
Will you make your future a more dreadful copy of your 
past ? Will you dedicate tomorrow, and tomorrow, and 
tomorrow to the wild and bloody pursuit of common 
disaster for us both; and dream your mad dream of 
vengeance and disunion, and wake to find you have 
dragged us twain over the verge of irrevocable 
destruction ? 

Will you dree that weird, Kathleen ? 

Even then we shall be united. Our arms are about 
each other's necks, either in choking grips of enmity, 
seeking to strangle each other, or in embraces of friend- 
ship and sisterly love. Struggle as you will, Kathleen, 
we cannot be free of each other. No separate destiny 
can you have, willingly as we would give it to you. 
Our final partnership is sure, and though we have not 
been lovely and pleasant in our lives, in our death we 
shall not be divided. 

Kathleen, sister Kathleen, what fresh bloodstains are 
these upon your hands ? Ah, cleanse yourself of them, 
and tiirow away that secret dagger. For be sure, that 



174 Patriotism and 

within three years of self-governnient, you will be 
using that same dagger with deadlier effect to stab 
your own flesh, than ever you used it against us. 
/ Frustrated and defeated already, are all your schemes 
p^ oi independence even before you have laid them; mil- 
dewed is every harvest that you shall raise, even before 
you have sown its seed; your looms shall not weave, 
and your ships shall not sail; your harbours shall not 
be built, and your coasts shall have no commerce but 
with the winds; a lonelier desolation shall creep over 
your hills, and decay shall be a more ruthless invader of 
your cities, than ever were your English foes — the grass 
is already growing in their streets; and Penury, 
Squalor, and Misrule are appointed their chief magis- 
trates. This is the heritage of Separation that you claim 
from England. How can we add to the wrongs we have 
done you in past centuries by giving you Separation 
Today ? 

Kathleen, sister Kathleen, there is but a narrow 
stretch of sea between us. Will you for ever persuade 
yourself that it is an ocean, wider and angrier than the 
Atlantic, and never to be crossed? Will you not at 
last, Mavourneen, show us a most noble forgiveness, 
and let us find our way to you across that narrow sea, 
with loving kindness, and help and reconciliation, with 
assuagement and obliteration of the past ? 

Patriotism is not wholly a matter of race and of 
country, though it draws its richest nourishment from 
the blood of its fathers, and throws its deepest roots 
into its native land. We, who were born amongst the 
meadows and hedgerows of England, may delight more 
in mountains and heather, but the wildest and sublimest 
scenery never takes such a hold upon our hearts. There 
are passages in Shakespeare that only an Englishman 



Popular Education 175 

can fully understand, and some that give a relisli of 
homely interpretation only to those who are native in 
his neighbouring soil and air. Even to-day there are 
many common folk among the South Midlanders, who 
have a kinship with Shakespeare, and an intimacy of 
approach to him, which is denied to scholars and com- 
mentators. 

An incipient form of Patriotism springs up in every 
village. The inhabitants of Little Pedlington have an 
inborn contempt for the inhabitants of Great Pedling- 
ton; while the dwellers in Great Pedlington are filled 
with derision for the dwellers in Little Pedlington. 
East Gawkham lives in simmering feuds with West 
Gawkham, and prides itself upon its higher level of 
morality. West Gawkham returns the antagonism of 
East Gawkham, and brags of the finer achievements of 
its cricket club. There is little enough to justify these 
boasts of local superiority, for the morality of East 
Gawkham is deplorable, and the cricketers of West 
Gawkham are a team of contemptible amateurs. But in 
any matter that concerns the interests of their common 
county, all these four villages will stubbornly unite 
against the adjoining county. Eor counties, too, have 
their local Patriotism. 

These incipient Patriotisms have their excesses and 
absurdities, which it is to be hoped that Popular Edu- 
cation and Internationalism will eradicate in the course 
of ten thousand years or so. Meantime, let us take note 
that these instincts are not the prejudices of mere yo- 
kels, but are part of the common heritage of humanity. 
They begin in the family itself, for though we may fall 
out at home, we stoutly defend our kinsfolk from any 
interference or aspersion by our neighbours. If we 
watch ourselves, we shall find that we are all guilty of 



176 Patriotism and 

an unreasonable preference for our own family, our 
own village, our own tribe, our own trade, our own 
class, our own country. It is not only thieves wbo, from 
the exigencies of their calling, hang together and band 
themselves against the rest of mankind. All human 
institutions and organizations are pervaded by clannish- 
ness, which is a form of Patriotism. It has the same 
defects and vices, but on the balance it is largely advan- 
tageous, helpful, constructive. It is inherent in all 
mankind. What one of us has not in him some smack 
of the perverse partiality of the old Yorkshireman who, 
having been taken to see the wonders of London for 
the first time, surveyed his native town on his return 
and declared "Eh ! There's nov^i; to come up to Pudsey 
after all !" 

But Patriotism often disengages itself from the ties 
of race and country. When we are torn away from our 
people and the land of our birth, our hearts soon begin 
to throw out tendrils towards the folk and the country 
of our adoption, and we end by clinging to them with 
entire loyalty and devotion. This engrafted Patriot- 
ism is always liable to suspicion, both unjust and just. 
^Nevertheless, it has constantly given unquestionable 
proof of its staunch and incorruptible allegiance to its 
foster motherland. America may bo greatly proud that 
she has overcome the formidable threat of German ob- 
struction to her cause, and that the vast majority of her 
citizens of German descent have enthusiastically de- 
clared their attachment to her flag. 

Surely if this war has proved anything, it has proved 
the reality, the vitality, the indestructibility of Patriot- 
ism. It has everywhere shown itself to be the compul- 
sive instinct, the governing force that binds a nation 
into effective unity, that moves and quickens all the re- 



Popular Education 177 

lations of nations with one another. Doubtless it has 
often shown its characteristic defects and excesses. But, 
except- for the Patriotism of Belgium, France, England, 
Italy, America, and our other Allies, the whole civilized 
world would have been under the heel of Germany to- 
day. Internationalism, in all its manifestations, has 
shown itself to be mischievous, obstructive, ruinous, the 
engine of social disruption and anarchy. 

This must needs be so. Every nation is a living so- 
cial organism, whose existence depends upon its obedi- 
ence to the general laws that govern all living things. 
N'one of its many internal functions can be performed 
except in harmonious working with all its other func- 
tions. It cannot be healthy, or long continue as a liv- 
ing corporate entity, unless all its organs work together 
for the welfare of the whole body. This is a mere 
commonplace of sociology, but it is constantly ignored in 
legislation, and is frankly despised by Internationalists. 

The current term "Beconstruction" implies a flat de- 
nial of the laws that govern national reparation and de- 
velopment. It is sure to be misleading, and may be 
most harmful, in the period of social Vepair and con- 
valescence that lies before us after the war. For the 
word "Reconstruction" confirms the ancient and per- 
sistent delusion that men and institutions can be trans- 
formed according to the few simple rules that carpen- 
ters and masons follow in handling their unresisting 
blocks of wood and stone. The same heap of bricks can 
be made into a pigsty or into a cathedral, and will un- 
complainingly yield themselves to the design of the ar- 
chitect, whatever edifice he may choose to build with 
them. The statute books of all nations are littered 
with the abortive enactments of legislators who have 
treated men as blocks of wood and stone that can be mor- 



178 Patriotism and 

tised into a geometrical social structure whicli they have 
designed. "Reconstruction" is a mischievously wrong 
term to apply to those activities of social reparation 
in which we shall soon be engaged. It encourages us in 
a wholly false conception of the nature and scope and 
limitations of those activities. 

!N"ations cannot be "reconstructed." The social ar- 
chitect who tries to "reconstruct" a nation, finds, sooner 
or later, that he is handling live red-hot bricks, that will 
not lie quiet in their places, but keep on jumping about 
with wills of their own, when he tries to fit them in his 
well-arranged scheme. The regeneration of society must 
be accomplished, not by methods akin to those of the 
carpenter and the builder, but by methods akin to 
those of the physician. The physician is successful, 
only if he tunes his treatment to the present condition 
of the individual body under his care, and only so far 
as he can coax a response from the vital forces within 
that body. It is the vital forces within the body that 
work its repair. 

So the social reformer is successful only when he un- 
derstands the infiinitely complex laws that govern the 
growth and development of the body politic, only when 
he tunes his treatment to present conditions, and only 
in the measure that he can draw a response from its 
living indwelling moral and spiritual forces. It is the 
moral and spiritual forces within a nation that must 
work its regeneration. If these are decayed and mori- 
bund, the social reformer will get no response, even 
though he may have applied the correct treatment. He 
is like the doctor in "Tristram Shandy" who gave his 
patient the right medicine, but the man died. "He 
ought not," said the doctor. 

All this is well understood by practical legislators. 



Popular Education 179 

Then why do we continue to talk of "Reconstruction^" 
when already the immense majority of our electorate 
of all classes are possessed with the delusion that, be- 
cause some condition of society is desirable for them- 
selves, or for their neighbours, or for the nation, or for 
the planet, it can be brought about by merely passing 
Acts of Parliament? Are we not likely to encourage 
much legislative quackery, ending in disappointment 
and disorder ? Would it not be well to change the title 
of "Ministry of Reconstruction" to that of "Ministry 
of Reparation" ? It would be less likely to mislead us 
as to the nature of the work that lies before us, and of 
the methods that we must use to make it prosper. 

I do not say that a society or a nation is a compact 
animal, very like a camel, or very like a whale. Obvi- 
ously nations do not reproduce themselves after the 
manner of animals. ISTations are renewed and grow into 
separate organisms, by means of fissure, conquest, in- 
terpenetration, interbreeding, and absorption. But 
when these processes have reached a certain stage, a na- 
tion is a distinct corporate entity, and maintains its in- 
dividuality till the same processes bring about its dis- 
solution. While it exists as a nation, it has its own will 
and impulses, its own purposes and aims, and its own 
set of highly-involved internal organs, adapted to its 
own needs and pursuits, just like an animal. All its 
activities must be carried on by means of this set of in- 
ternal organs, working in co-operation for its individual 
welfare. A nation is always an organized mass of liv- 
ing tissue, subject to the laws that govern the growth 
and processes of living matter. It can only be repaired 
by strict obedience to these laws. 

Internationalists look upon these several masses of 
organized living matter, as so many structures of brick 



180 Patriotism and 

and timber which can ho pulled down and used to build 
up one new universal edifice of humanity. Even if we 
allow, as we readily may, that the laws, institutions, and 
social fabric of each nation, are, in many respects, like 
a house that provides a shelter, workshop, nursery, and 
playground to the people who have built it and live in 
it — granting this, yet the inhabitants of each national 
homo remain as a separate family, with their own man- 
ners, prejudices, morals, and beliefs, and with interests 
and aims that are in perpetual conflict with 'many of 
the interests and aims of their neighbours. 

There was once a quaint old township of forty-six 
houses, of odd sizes and shapes; all of them built at 
different times, in widely varying styles ; some of them 
large and commodious and imposing; otliers of middling 
size and importance ; some of them small and filthy and 
pestilential; some of them new and crude and jerry- 
built; many of them old and ramshackle and tumble- 
down, having been repaired, and divided, and added to, 
and altered to suit the convenience of the successive 
o\vners in the past generations. These houses were sev- 
erally inhabited by families of different ranks, sizes, 
and degrees of relationship; rich, poor; small, large; 
respectable, disreputable ; with divers habits, tastes, pro- 
pensities, means of livelihood, mental and physical ca- 
pacities, morals, religions, casts of features, facial an- 
gles, complexions. 

Owing to these great diversities, there was always 
more or less strife and disturbance in the town, and 
occasionally there was brawling and fighting in the 
streets ; especially as the acreage of the parish was lim- 
ited, both for agricultural and building purposes. There 
was perpetual wrangling over the most coveted sites, 
and most fertile fields, inasmuch as many of the owners 



Popular Education 181 

and occupiers of them could not show a good title, and 
in many cases had indeed no claim beyond that of hav- 
ing forcibly ejected the former holders, who also had 
very doubtful rights of possession. Sometimes the 
fighting was between two neighbouring families, while 
the rest of the town looked on, some trying to mediate, 
some encouraging one or the other party. Often be- 
fore the fight was ended, one or two of the neighbours 
would join in the fray, aooording as their interests, or 
their opinions, or their love of a fight prompted them. 

Occasionally one of these periodic quarrels would 
spread through the town, and nearly all the families 
would take part, on one side or the other, in a general 
riot. Traffic would be stopped, and the market stalls 
overturned. Paving stones would be torn up, and 
spades and axes and fire-irons used as weapons, till the 
gutters ran with blood. Houses would bo burnt and 
plundered, and much valuable property destroyed. 
After one of these town fights which had been unusually 
brutal and destructive, and when at length peace had 
been restored, one or two of the leading citizens pro- 
posed that they should all agi'ee never to fight again. 
Everybody was struck with the wisdom of this sensible 
proposal, especially the members of those families who 
could count the largest number of bloody noses and 
broken limbs. So they resolved to put it into practice 
at once, and entered into a covenant never to fight again, 
never, never, never. 

Beyond this salutary provision against any future 
disturbance of the peace, another large remedial meas- 
ure was brought forward. There arose in the town a 
certain Mr. Fervent Tmpossiblist, who had long brood- 
ed over the sad state of its affairs, and had hatched in 
his brain a simple plan which would not only prevent 



182 Patriotism and 

any fn-^+her riots, but would remove tlie economic dis^ 
tress which prevailed in most families, and would en- 
able the whole town to live in gi'oatly increased wealth 
and comfort and convenience. He called a meeting of 
the inhabitants, and laid his scheme before them. 

"The condition of this town is a disgi*aoe to human- 
ity," he declared. "Instead of living in amity and 
peace amongst ourselves, and striving to malce every- 
body happy and comfortable and prosperous, here we 
all are, wasting half our energies and half our time in 
tricking and hindering and swindling each other, in 
muddling all our civic concerns, and in fighting and dis- 
abling each other. We have to employ a large body of 
police to enforce order, and yet we are in constant dread 
of burglary and dc^predations. We have to keep all our 
houses locked and barred, and to pay a heavy insur- 
ance on our valuables. Yet we are never safe, but live 
in ceaseless anxiety and alann about them. Really this 
state of affairs is intolerable." 

These remarks were received with general approval, 
for certainly the town was in a very unsatisfactory con- 
dition, and most of the inhabitants were genuinely anx- 
ious for a radical improvement, especially in their own 
lots. 

"You oppress and ill-treat your servants," he con- 
tinued. ''In some houses they are lodged in dirty un- 
healthy rooms, and half starved." 

This was quite true, and drew frantic applause from 
the servants themselves, for many of them had good 
reason to think tliemsclvos ill-used. And even those 
who were very well off, and had all reasonable comforts, 
were quite ready to be convinced that they were shame- 
fully underpaid and downtrodden. Indeed it was no- 



Popular Education 183 

ticed that the loudest cheers for the speaker came from 
this latter class. 

"Now," said Mr. Fervent Impossiblist, "this state of 
things must positively cease. All these evils and abuses 
must be swept away from this time forward." 

There was a shout of wide and hearty agreement. 

"What is the cause of this inequality, injustice, iU- 
feeling, oppression, disorder, waste, wrangling, and 
fighting ? It can all be ti-aced to the fact that we live in 
our own separate homes. This makes us selfish and cal- 
lous, greedy for our own comfort and prosperity, and 
for the welfare of our own children, careless of our 
neighbours' comfort and prosperity, and neglectful of 
our duties towards our neighbours' children. For in 
any well regulated society, we should be as zealous for 
the welfare of our neighbours' children as for the wel- 
fare of our own, and should work as hard to secure it. 
How otherwise can Justice and Equality be meted out 
to everybody, and how otherwise can we all get our 
Rights?" 

At the sound of the word "Rights," the servants burst 
into loud and continued cheering. For, as I have said, 
many of them had been badly treated. Indeed some of 
them had not long discovered that they had any 
"Rights," and the mere pronouncement of the simple 
word "Rights" had the same effect upon them that a 
strong dose of neat brandy has upon a strict teetotaler. 

"This baleful habit of living in our own separate 
homes," the speaker went on, "encourages us to take a 
pride in them, to keep up a large number of servants, 
and to furnish them in a better style than our neigh- 
bours can afford. It leads to rivalry and display, and 
provokes our neighbours in smaller and shabbier houses 



184 Patriotism and 

to discontent and envy, and moves thera to stir up a 
town fight tliat they may got some plunder. And, 
again, this evil habit of living in separate homes, pre- 
vents us from mixing freely with our neighbours, from 
adopting their habits, sympathizing with their aspira- 
tions, and overcoming our prejudices against their mor- 
als and complexions. It keeps us from understanding 
each other, and from forming one large happy family 
in one largo happy homo. But above all, this pernicious 
habit of living in separate houses, is the cause of the 
great waste of our energies and resources, and of the 
consequent economic distress that prevails throughout 
the town. Tor it forces us to keep up forty-six different 
establishments, each with its own set of servants, who 
have to provide forty-six separate services of meals, and 
perform a vast amount of drudgery — " (There was a 
buzz of approbation from the servants, which grew into 
ringing cheers) — ''Drudgery that would bo quite un- 
necessary if wo were all members of one large house- 
hold." 

The excitement among the servants increased. The 
plan that Mr. FoiTont Impossiblist proposed appeared 
80 desirable to them, that without waiting for him to 
disclose any further particulars, they began to form 
groups to discuss how they could put it into immediate 
execution. 

"Now I propose," continued the orator, "to make a 
clean sweep of all this prejudice and misunderstand- 
ing between different families, all this quite unnecessary 
envy and hatred and greed, all this ill-usage of servants, 
all this economic waste and misery — I propose to abol- 
ish it all from this time forth. Let us pull down these 
rotten old tenements, tliese nests of family pride and 
selfishness, these breeding places of jealousy and covet- 



Popular Education 185 

ousness and strife, these nurseries of intrigue and am- 
bition, these abodes of tyi-anny, these haunts of domes- 
tic oppression " 

A frenzied shout of applause rose from the throats 
of the servants. 

"Let us raze them to the ground !" 

Some of the servants started off to find hammers and 
other instruments of destniction. 

"Let us build one large brand new home for us all to 
live in, with every comfort and convenience for each 
one of us, with one large table for us all to partake of 
our meals in common, one large kitchen to cook for us 
all, one laige bath-room for those of us who may be 
disposed to use it, one large fireside for us all to gather 
round in the evening. And as for servants, let us all 
wait upon one another " 

This was enough. All the discontented folk of the 
town, and these formed the great majority, rushed off 
to ransack and destroy their neighbours' houses. 

While Mr. Fervent Impossiblist was explaining his 
plan to some of the citizens who were a little doubtful 
as to its feasibility, and were pressing him for further 
details, a raging mob had begun to batter down the 
strongest and most substantial buildings in the main 
street. The riot lasted for several days and nights, and 
was the most furious and bloody and destructive that 
the town had ever known. For as I have said, and must 
repeat, many of the servants had been badly treated and 
oppressed, and all of them were determined to get their 
Rights. And this general sense of being ill-used and 
kept out of their Rights, had fostered in them a hatred 
of the very walls and furniture of the houses where they 
had suffered, and where many of them had been born 
and had lived all their lives. Indeed most of them 



186 Patriotism and 

supposed that the walls and furniture were in some 
way largely accountable for their sufferings. They 
therefore derived gTeat satisfaction from wreaking their 
vengeance upon the scenes and implements of their 
servitude. And when once they had become inflamed 
with the lust of destruction, they did not limit their ac- 
tivities to the walls and furniture that had offended 
them, but continued to batter and demolish everything 
that came within their reach, leaving not a post stand- 
ing upright, or one brick cemented to another. !N^or 
did they cease till the town was half wrecked, and till 
all the stores of food in it had been consumed. 

There followed many months of the greatest disorder, 
misery, and privation for all the people in the town, of 
all classes. And unfortunately it was the sen^ants who 
suffered the most, and endured the worst ills. For it 
afterwards came to light, that at an early stage in the 
meeting, many of the cunning well-to-do people, fore- 
seeing trouble and disturbance ahead, had sneaked away 
to their homes, and had stolen thence as much food, 
and as many of the necessaries of life, as they could lay 
hands upon, and had hidden them in various places 
against the time when they might be in want. This was 
a very unsociable proceeding on their part. Kor could 
they offer any better defence for it, than the paltry ex- 
cuse that they did not wish to starve. However it sei-ved 
to tide many of them over the time of cruel want and 
misery that followed the riot, and that lasted for months 
after it had been quelled; whereas the servants, being 
left without any resources, suffered extreme privations, 
and many of them perished miserably. 

After some months of the greatest general disturb- 
ance, the town settled down into comparative peace and 
orderly life. Those families whose houses had not been 



Popular Education 187 

demolished or irreparably damaged, returned to occupy 
them, and to make the repairs necessary to render them 
once more habitable. Some of the families who found 
themselves homeless, became the servants of their more 
fortunate neighbours. A few of the servants, who had 
seized the houses and goods of their masters during the 
riot, stoutly defended themselves in their stolen prop- 
erties; and as they could not be ejected without great 
further disturbance, they were allowed to remain in 
possession. It was noticed that these upstarts showed 
themselves to be more overbearing and tyrannical than 
the masters whom they had displaced. 

But for a long while, the whole town lived in great 
discomfort and poverty and misery. Much useful and 
valuable property had been destroyed, and many beau- 
tiful pieces of old furniture had been broken to pieces. 
The various families lived in separate houses, much as 
they had done before the riot. But as general distrust 
and ill-feeling had been engendered, there was much 
less kindness and sociability and forbearance in the 
general intercourse of the town. On the whole, the 
condition of things for some years was incomparably 
much worse than it had ever been. 

Mr. Fervent Impossiblist continued to point out to 
the misguided community, that this; atmosphere of 
quarrrelBomeness, and the consequent jarrings tha,t 
arose in all their dealings, were due to the folly and per- 
versity of the various families who, in spite of his 
warnings, would still persist in living in separate 
homes, instead of forming one large united household 
under one roof. 'Roy did he cease to urge his fellow 
citizens to break up their exclusive habits, and adopt, 
his scheme, as the only cure for the social abuses and 
economic evils that afflicted the town. 



188 Patriotism and 

Docs anyone suppose that if Mr. Fervent Impos- 
siblist had succeeded in building' his brand new town 
lionio, and had pci'suadcd all of the citizens to inhabit 
it — docs anyone suppose that there would not have been 
far more bitterness, disorder, strife, and brawling 
anion<]i:st thoni, than when thoy lived in their own homos, 
or l,h;it In l(\ss than twenty-four hours the place would 
not have bcMi a raging pandemonium ? 

Doc'i jinyoJio HUj)poHe that tlu^ various nations of the 
earth, iu tlK^ir present stages of developuiont, with their 
irreconcihible diversities of all kinds, can live peace- 
ably under some artificial form of unified central gov- 
ermuont, "where supreme power will presumably Iw 
lodged in the hands of a mixed Committee? Does 
anyone sujipose that such a state of world civilization 
can be realized, or even that any approach can be made 
towards it, until four-fifths of us have changed our 
root(>d hal)it.s and jjropensities, our ways of living and 
thinking, our social and moral standards, our religious 
beliefs, our facial angles, and our complexions? 

Tnternatioiuilists will doubtless say that they do 
not at present propose to establish a unified central gov- 
ernment that will arrange and direct the world's aifairs. 
There are many degrees nnd kinds of Tnternationalism. 
The term covers widely dilferiug sets of opinions. If 
its discordant votaries wore pressed to give a strict defi- 
nition of its meaning, most of them would probably re- 
ply witli the uncpicstioned authority of Ilumpty Dump- 
ty himself, "When I use a word, it means exactly what 
I choose it to mean — no more and no less." 

These varying sects of Internationalists are more 
or less allied, and are in some cases identical, with 
varying and discordiint sects of revolutionary Social- 
ists. The general scheme and aim of them all, so far 



Popular Education 189 

as it can be discovered and stated in one compact for- 
mula, is to gain increasing control and management of 
International relations and transactions, and gradually 
to sap and supplant the established governments of the 
world, by making them subject in all their foreign af- 
fairs to a supremo central tribunal, elected by the pre- 
ponderant vote of the working classes of all the peoples. 
If that is not their general scheme and aim, will Inter- 
nationalists tell us what clear, practicable, constructivo 
world plan they have in their minds, and by what prac- 
ticable means they propose to carry it out? For the 
moment, and until I can make a further examination, 
I will use the term '^Internationalism" to signify a defi- 
nite purpose to attain the two objectives I have marked 
out. And I will assume that the various sects of Inter- 
nationalists are so far united, as to recognize tliat they 
are working to reach these two objectives. 

Probably a great majority of them suppose that this 
vast unification of human society can bo brought about 
by peaceable methods ; or at worst that it will be attend- 
ed by a quite inconsiderable amount of actual fighting. 
Surely of all the delusions that have possessed mankind, 
this is the grossest and most dangerous. So far as In- 
ternationalism has been operative, it has everywhere 
shown itself to bo the agent of confusion, disintegration, 
hatred, strife, anarchy, and bloodshed. 

This must necessarily be so. Every social structure 
that has proved itself strong enough to shelter a nation, 
and to presei-ve it from internal disruption and external 
assault, has its foundations laid deep down in past his- 
tory, and each of its successive stories has been built 
to suit the necessities, habits, industrial activities, men- 
tal and moral capacities, and religious beliefs of that 
particular nation. Internationalism strikes athwart all 



190 Patriotism and 

these structures, cracks their walls, shakes their stabil- 
ity, and aims at pulling them down, obliterating all tlieir 
divisions and boundaries, and reducing them all to one 
common level. 

I do not say that in some far remote future, Nature 
may not people this planet with one pure race of wise 
and perfect men. I do not say that Nature is not busy 
even now considering the advisability of such a wholly 
beneficial change, and tliat She is not even now perhaps 
preparing the earth for the ultimate occupation of such 
a race. I do not know what plans Nature has got in her 
head. Therefore the spirit of prophecy is not upon mo. 

I do know full surely, that in no early or approximate 
period of time, can any effective system of International 
Governuiont be firmly and lasting!}'- established over 
mankind, without groat and wide confiscation, disorder, 
misery amongst all classes, especially amongst the poor- 
est, prolonged destruction and anarchy, and the shedding 
of torrents of blood, compared with which the stream 
that is now flowing might be a mere rivulet. They are 
blind self-deceivers who think that, in the present dis- 
position of the peoples, or in any near future disposition 
of tho peoples, the elTorts of revolutionary International- 
ism will lead us to Peace. If a long vmtroubled course 
of Peace is what we are seeking, let us not piirsue it 
through the mazes of Internationalism, everywhere beset 
with thorns, and ambushes, and snares, and igncs fatui, 
and the lurking biindlts of civilization. 

There are many Internationalists who openly pro- 
claim that they seek to destroy the whole fabric of so- 
ciety, by making ceaseless and violent war upon it. And 
there are weltering masses of mankind who are ready to 
listen to them, and to join them in pillage and massa- 
cre, on the chance of plundering something from the 



Popular Education 191 

wreck. Anarchy cannot be met by argument. It has 
to be shot down, or allowed to shoot itself down. And 
this primary duty to society, and to itself, it always per- 
forms, sooner or later. 

But the large body of Internationalists are averse 
from actual warfare. They imagine that they can attain 
their ends by a gradual peaceful usurpation of diplo- 
matic functions and the powers of foreign legislation, 
leading to the gradual absorption of existing govern- 
ments. Many Internationalists are Pacifists who con- 
demn all war as unlawful and unnecessary. Yet some 
of the most confirmed Pacifists show the warmest sym- 
pathy with the wildest forms of class warfare and an- 
archy. It is strange that men who shudder at the mere 
mention of war between nations, and who have villified 
the most righteous cause for which men have ever bled 
— it is strange that these turbulent pettifoggers should 
encourage a blind, and furious hatred between classes, 
which, so far as it is kept alive and inflamed to action, 
can but break into sporadic recurrent warfare, ending 
in the establishment of the cruellest forms of universal 
militarism. For the soldier always has to be called in at 
the last. And it is difficult to get rid of him. 

N'o doubt the great majority of Internationalists 
strongly deprecate any such united action by their as- 
sociated groups in different countries, as would provoke 
an outbreak of war. They imagine that the tremendous 
transition from Patriotic to International Government 
can be brought about by voting for it — that is, by con- 
vincing the working classes, who form the great body 
of the electorate in each nation, that their interests are 
identical with the interests of the working classes in 
aJl the other nations, and are opposed to the interests of 
all the other classes in all the other nations. 



192 Patriotism and 

Is this true? 

Germany affirms that the present war was inevitable, 
and was brought about because of the constant and in- 
creasing collision between the economic and commercial 
interests of England and Germany, II ow far this may 
have been a contributory cause of the war, we need not 
stay to inquire. If the economic and commercial in- 
terests of England and Germany were opposed, as un- 
questionably they were, then the main interests of the 
working chisscs in each country nuist have been opposed ; 
for the welfare of the working classes depends wholly 
upon economic and commercial conditions in each coun- 
try. That, before the war, there was a fundamental and 
deadly antagonism between the vital interests of the 
working classes of England and Germany, is abundant- 
ly proved by the evidence that if Germany had not pro- 
voked the war, and had been content to pursue her can- 
cerous system of peaceful penetration, she would in ten 
or twenty years have gained control of the most profit- 
able industi'ies, and of the chief markets of the world. 
English working men would have been pushed into the 
less desirable and less lucrative occupations, would have 
nmltiplied in dwindling numbers compared with Ger- 
man working men, and would have suffered grievous dis- 
advantages from these dominant competitors. Undoubt- 
edly tliis state of increasing enmity of vital interests and 
social welfare between English and German working 
men did really exist before the war. Yet all the time 
English working men were being urged to make a com- 
mon cause with the good faitliful Scheidemann and his 
friends against tlieir conmion enemy, the capitalist. 

But who has proved to be the real enemy ? 

And who will prove to be real enemies of the working 
men of each country in the still fiercer commercial wai'- 



Popular Education 193 

fare of the next generation ? Will it be the capitalists 
of their own country, or those working men of other 
countries who are competing with them for the neces- 
saries of existence, the most desirable employments, and 
the easiest conditions of living? 

There is, indeed, a very real opposition between the 
interests of the capitalist and the working man in any 
trade; and in that ceaseless struggle to obtain the high- 
est reward for his labour, the greatest comfort for him- 
self and his family, the largest openings for social ad- 
vancement — so far as all these are consistent with the 
stability and high civilization of the State — in this most 
just and most laudable endeavour to alleviate in every 
way possible the hardships of his sharp-set life, I am 
entirely in sympathy with the working man. 

But is it not becoming every day more plain, that 
while the interests of the working man and the capitat- 
ist in any country are opposed when they have to bar- 
gain with each other, their interests are mutual and 
identical when they have to bargain together against 
the competing working men and capitalists of other 
countries? And the affairs and transactions in which 
the working men and capitalists of any trade have a 
fellowship and solidarity of interest, are of much greater 
magnitude and importance than the domestic affairs 
and transactions in which their interests are opposed. 
It is obvious that the first main interest of both work- 
ing man and capitalist, is to keep alive and flourishing 
that business upon which they both depend — the work- 
ing man far more than the capitalist, who probably has 
other resources. The fair division of the profits arising 
from that business must always be a matter of secondary 
importance to them both, compared with the supreme 
necessity of keeping it going as a prosperous concern. 



194 Patriotism and 

For if the business languishes and perishes, they both 
languish and perish — the working man certainly, the 
capitalist unless he has made other provision. It is the 
working man who is most accessible to the assaults of 
misfortune, always and everywhere. No juggling with 
social and political economy will ever alter this fact. 
And seeing how easily accessible to misfortune our work- 
ing classes are, how every national mistake and calam- 
ity are in the end visited chiefly and most harshly upon 
them, it is of the first importance that we should dis- 
cern where their true interests lie, and how they may 
best be secured. 

It is for the working classes of our own Empire that 
I am concerned. They are right in looking upon the 
capitalists of their own country as their enemies, so far 
as the capitalists are neglectful of them, and bent upon 
"exploiting" them merely for profit. They are wrong in 
looking upon the capitalists of their own country, even 
at the worst, as their chief enemies. The inevitable con- 
flict of interests between the working men and capital- 
ists in each industry in each country, is a minor an- 
tagonism compared with their mutual conflict of inter- 
ests with the interests of competing working men and 
capitalists in the same industry in other countries. It 
is to the perception of this essential permanent com- 
munity of interest between the capitalists and the work- 
ing men in each of our industries, that we must look for 
the liquidation of our enormous national debt, and for 
the gradual return to our former prosperity and easy 
means of livelihood. 

Surely if the war has taught us anything, it has 
taught us that the stability and welfare of the State is 
the chief interest of us all. Now Internationalism not 
only strikes athwart and splits asunder the social struc- 



Popular Education 1^^ 

ture of each country in its diplomatic and foreign re- 
lations; it also strikes athwart and splits asunder the 
social structure of each country in its economic and 
commercial relations. It works to bring confusion and 
strife into all our internal activities, and commercial 
disadvantage into all our dealings with other countries. 
If the masses of our people are taught that they owe 
their chief allegiance to a nebulous International State 
which does not exist; which in no discernible period 
of time is likely to exist; which, as the world is now 
constituted, cannot be brought into existence without a 
long intervening reign of anarchy and bloodshed; and 
which in the meantime can oifer them no better se- 
curity and protection than is afforded by rhetoric and 
phrases and false idealisms — if the masses of our peo- 
ples are taught this as the first article of their political 
creed, how can they be good citizens of their own coun- 
try, and fulfil their duties to the State which does ac- 
tually give them security and protection, and this in 
the measure to which they render it their undivided 
allegiance and support, and in the measure that it is 
firmly established, not in the void, but on this actual 
earth ; standing on its own basis ; compact with its own 
limits; a social structure, strong and enduring hecause 
it is distinct from all other social structures — rather, 
shall we say, a living social organism, capable of carry- 
ing on its internal and external functions, capable of 
growth and development, hecause it is distinct from all 
other living social organisms ? 

Here I feel bound to make a handsome concession 
to Internationalists, and frankly to own that each of 
them would be right in a world of his own making, and 
that in such a world his advice and direction would be 
of enormous benefit to the entire population. But I 



196 -Patriotism and 

am now writing of the actual world in which we live, 
and not of our vast new inheritance, where large de- 
licious omelettes will grow on every tree, and where all 
other desirable things will be provided for us by similar 
methods. 

Russia is now offering us an example of practical 
Internationalism in full working disorder. The avowed 
aims of Internationalists were proclaimed in Russia on 
the fall of the Czar — to destroy aggressive military pow- 
er by talking to it ; to clear the earth of dark upas trees 
of race hatred, national jealousy and ambition, by plant- 
ing buttercups and daisies round their roots; to quell 
the greedy impulses and predatory instincts of the mul- 
tiplying millions of mankind, by telling them that all 
is legally theirs that they choose to take; and having 
by these means brought about a state of universal har- 
mony and prosperity, to ensure its continuance by deal- 
ing out equal coupons of happiness to everybody. 

This was what Internationalism set out to do in Rus- 
sia. What it has really done is to give to everybody 
an equal right to plunder everybody else, and an equal 
right to cut anybody's throat. So far have International 
principles prevailed in securing equality of opportunity 
in Russia. Is it not evident that the government of 
the Czar, foul and detestable as it was, did yet offer far 
greater protection and comfort, and far better cond- 
tions of living to the Russian people; that it was im- 
measurably less corrupt, less cruel, less tyrannical, less 
bereft of political instinct, less madly subversive of all 
the foundations of human society? 

But Internationalists hailed the advent of Bolshe- 
vism with great joy. Mr. H. G. Wells said it was "our 
duty and an urgent necessity to get a grip upon the 
situation." He set out to get a grip upon the situa- 



Popular Education 197 

tion. When he had got a grip upon the situation, he 
came to the conclusion that the Bolshevists were 
"straight" ; that they were "probably honest" (they had 
just repudiated their national debt) ; that they were 
"shining clear" ; that they were "profoundly wise," in- 
deed, "altogether wiser and plainer than our own 
rulers." He declared that their aims were the same as 
our own. He was of opinion that their "mental and 
moral methods against German militarism might prove 
more powerful than the military method." He claimed 
that Bolshevist diplomacy was altogether superior to 
our muddling Foreign Office dilettantism, the Bolshe- 
vists being "much better educated" than our own diplo- 
matists, who wore "ignorant and limited" men, "crudely 
ignorant of the world of modern ideas"; whereas the 
Bolshevist leaders were "intimately acquainted with the 
Labour movement, with social and economic questions, 
and with almost everything that really mattered in real 
politics." The Bolshevists were working their end so 
well, that Mr. Wells urged us to consider the advisa- 
bility of a systematic co-operation with them in their 
"profoundly wise" policy. Thus did Mr. Wells get a 
grip upon the situation in Russia. 

Can human imagination conceive our plight to-day, 
if our rulers had followed Mr. Wells's advice, and had 
incorporated the cause of the Allies with that filthy mass 
of corruption, fraud, massacre, disease, and anarchy 
which now festers in the vitals of the Russian people? 
How thankful we may be that our Foreign Office is 
filled with limited, ignorant, uneducated men, who, not 
possessing Mr. Wells's "clarity," and being "crudely ig- 
norant" in Mr. Wells's "world of modern ideas," could 
not get a gTip upon the situation. 

But Mr. Wells claims that his Internationalist Bol- 



198 Patriotism and 

shovist friends aro intimately acquainted with "social 
and economic questions, and indeed with almost evory- 
ili'wfj; that nially matters in real politics." The Bol- 
slKiviats CHtimated the national expenditure for their 
first six months at £2,450,000,000 — about five thousand 
millions for tho year. '^Fhis is what comes of being 
''intiiiiatcly acipuiinled with social and economic ques- 
tions." And nobody knew where tho money had gone! 
Tn the "world of modem ideas" it s^'oms that "every- 
thing that really matters in real politics" is for every- 
body to lill his pockets with as nmch public money as 
he can lay his hands on. 

We notice with some alarm that a knowledge of "so- 
cial jind ec()ii()itii(^ <iu(!sti()ns" is sj)rcading amongst our 
own masses, and that they also aro rapidly becoming 
"iiiliinati^ly ac(iiiaiiiled with evcu-ythiug that really mat- 
tors in real politics." With such startling evidence, as 
is alToi'ded by Russia ii Tuternationalists, of the disaster 
that utknids the study of social and economic questions 
in Mr. Wells's "world of modern idc>as," I implore you 
air, to forbid all such sfndy in our bhiglish schools, and 
to substitute a prolonged study of the sixth, eighth, and 
tenth commandments, and of their c'lTects upon man- 
kind. There seems to bo some r(>nson for sus})(H'ting 
that, in the present state of our allairs, tho connnand- 
monts would offer a more profitable course of study 
than social and economic; questions. For the command- 
ments have proved their value in guiding and keeping, 
in somo sort of order, tlioso communities that have prac- 
tised them during some thousands of years; whereas 
tho study of social and economic questions — "in a world 
of modern ideas" — has proved to bo niinous to a great 
Empln^ in six months. 1 am sure you will ngre<' with 
me, sir, tJiat no country in tho long run suffers an eco- 



Popular Education 199 

nomic injury from a scnipulous oLscrvance of the sixth, 
eighth, and tenth commandments. At any rate, let us 
talce care to be well grounded in these commandments 
before we begin to study social economic questions. 
For hero again we are forcibly reminded that it is by 
the practice of great, simple, ancient rules of conduct, 
rather than by the diffusion of Mr. Wells's modern 
ideas, that nations wax gi-eat and strong, and show 
themselves invulnerable to external assault and internal 
decay. 

Having got a gi*ip upon the situation in Russia, Mr. 
Wells next proceeded to get a grip upon tlio situation 
in Africa. This was not a task of great difficulty; for 
fifteen days after ho had invited us to back up Inter- 
nationalism in Kussia, Mr. Wells invited us to set up 
Internationalism all over Africa. What had proved so 
salutary for benighted Russia, would be also salutary for 
benighted Africa. 

We remember that the eminent physician, Sangrado, 
had but one medicine for all di.seases — hot water. When 
an epidemic came, and all his patients died, ho still 
stuck to hot water. In vain did Gil Bias suggest to him 
that, as all the patients were dying, it might be ad- 
visable to give them a chance of recovery by trying some 
other remedy. Sangrado replied that he would will- 
ingly change his treatment, but that ho had written a 
book to prove that hot water was the correct specific 
for all diseases. lie could not be expected to stultify 
himself, merely because his patients were dying un- 
der his hot-water treatment. Mr. Wells has written so 
much to prove that International hot water is the pan- 
acea for all political diseases, that ho can scarcely be 
expected to change his treatment, merely because it baa 
disastrous effects in all countries where it is tried. At 



200 Patriotism and 

any rate, fortified by the spectacle of what Interna- 
tionalism had accomplished in Eussia, Mr. Wells pro- 
duced a brand new International constitution for the 
whole continent of Africa. 

I do not know much about Africa, except that there 
are large numbers of black people in the middle of it. 
I cannot pretend to say what medicine would be best 
suited to their political diseases. Mr. Wells proposes 
International hot water. He would put the entire popu- 
lation of the Continent under an International Com- 
mission, in which the interested nations, Africander, 
British, Belgian, Egyptian, French, Italian, Indian, 
Portuguese, would be represented in proportion to their 
interests. Whether Germany would come in, is for Ger- 
many tP consider. Given a new spirit in Germany, Mr. 
Wells would restore the German flag in East Africa. 
Leaving Germany to consider whether she would like to 
return to East Africa, and feeling sure that she will 
readily oblige Mr. Walls and get a new spirit for the 
occasion — leaving this question, we may ask who is to 
say, even roughly, what are the respective proportions 
of the interests of all the other nations ? How is this 
very thorny question to be decided ? By voting, or by 
fighting? These are the only two methods by which 
large conflicting interests can be settled. And though 
voting is the method which we all greatly prefer, there 
always comes a time, sooner or later, when voting does 
not settle vital interests that are in permanent conflict, 
but only complicates them the more. And then the sol- 
dier has to be called in — which is what we all wish to 
avoid. Does not Mr. Wells see that the mere attempt 
to settle what proportion of interests each nation has 
in Africa, and what amount of representation on his 
Committee should be allotted to each of them, is beset 



Popular Education 201 

with provocations to International strife? That is, 
it tends to canse the very evil tliat he would set up hia 
Commission to prevent. 

But grantini^ that his Commission could he amicahlj 
constituted, what are the chances that it would work 
successfully, and secure the peaceful development of 
Africa without constant International friction ? Mr. 
Wells would permit the French flag still to wave over 
Senegal, and the British flag to wave over Uganda, 
while, in the sweet by-and-hy, the Gei-tnan flag may 
wave over East Africa. So much deference would Mr. 
Wells pay to the various flags. He would allow them 
to wave, and perhaps occasionally to flap. Presumably 
this would be an honorary and ornamental occupation 
for the flags. Their business would be to wave and 
flap. For the supreme authority in Africa would be 
vested in Mr. Wells's Intei*national Commission. 

Now a national flag is itself the symbol of supreme 
authority. When the Union Jack flies over a district, 
it is a notice that all the military and naval power, and 
all the resources of the British Empire will, if necesr 
sary, bo employed to resist any challenge to that su- 
preme authority. The British flag has not braved the 
battle and the breeze for a thousand years, has not hung 
in the smoke of Trafalgar, and soared in the glare of 
Delhi and signalled beneficent rule and protection and 
prosperous order to the inhabitants of a quarter of the 
globe — it has not done this in the past to be condemned 
henceforth to flutter idly in the circumambient air, and 
flirt with the passing zephyrs. Yet this is the function 
that Mr. Wells assigns to the British flag in his Afri- 
can constitution. 

Does he say that he would allow it some measure of 
authority, and some privileges, in the regions over which 



202 Patriotism and 

it waves and flaps? How much authority and what 
privileges ? Would Mr. Wells allow it a small measure 
of authority, a few privileges, and very limited powers 
of jurisdiction ? Then he makes the British flag ridicu- 
lous in our own colonies. Would he allow it a large 
measure of authority, many privileges, and large powers 
of jurisdiction ? Then he brings the British flag into 
constant collision with the supreme authority of his 
Commission. Who is to define what privileges, what 
scope of action, what measure of authority, are to be 
permitted to the British Government in the administra- 
tion of our African possessions ? Mr. Wells would 
doubtless reply that this must be left to the decision 
of his Commission. Surely he must see that the mere 
attempt to arrive at any workable agreement would scat- 
ter his Commission to the winds. 

But Mr. Wells himself goes on to expose the misr 
chievous impracticability of his proposed constitution 
for Africa, by likening it to the constitution of the 
United States. The stability of the United States gov- 
ernment is assured by the national flag which floats over 
them all, and has equal authority over them all. The 
Stars and Stripes does not merely wave and flap over 
America in submission to the nilings of an Interna- 
tional Commission, and alongside half-a-dozen other 
languid strips of bunting. The lively, vigorous Stars 
and Stripes waves to some purpose at Washington. It 
means business. It binds all the people of the different 
States in the defence of their country, and gives them 
all equal protection against external assault, because 
they are all equally citizens of that country, and have 
common national interests, which are in many ways op 
posed to the interests of other nations. 

Mr. Wells's African constitution would be unstable, 



Popular Education 203 

because the inhabitants of its different States wotild not 
be united under one supreme centralized government, 
as are the people of the United States at Washington ; 
would not live under one common national flag giving 
them equal protection as citizens of one common coun- 
try, having national interests in common. They would 
not be united in the common defence of their posses- 
sions, or probably about anything at all. Mr. Wells's 
analogy is not merely transparently false; it proves, 
most aptly and absolutely, the radical unsoundness and 
impracticability of his whole scheme; and incidentally 
of all kindred schemes for the International govern- 
ment of diverse races and peoples. I will credit Mr. 
Wells with the perspicacity to recognize this very ob- 
vious fact. 

In any case, Mr. Wells would set up a divided au- 
thority all over Africa, than which no form of govern- 
ment could be more unstable, more certain to provoke 
irritation, confusion, and strife. Internationalism 
would be found again to bring forth its natural fruits, 
as soon as it attempted to claim supreme authority. And 
sooner or later, the soldier would have to be called in — > 
which is what we all wish to avoid. 

I am far from saying that temporary international 
commissions, with strictly defined, quite limited, and 
quite subordinate powers, might not be beneficially ap- 
pointed to report upon, and perhaps to take action, in 
certain sanitary, medical, and other matters, wherein 
all the nations, and all the inhabitants of Africa have a 
common interest. But this is a very different thing 
from a permanent surrender of all the main functions 
of government to a super-potent Intel-national Commis- 
sion, such as Mr. Wells proposes to establish. 

Meantime I beseech Mr. Wells, for the sake of the 



204 Patriotism and 

native populations, for the sake of the peaceful devel- 
opment of the dark continent, and above all, for the 
sake of his own reputation as a political thinker, to 
leave the international affairs of Africa in the hands 
of our diplomatists at the Foreign Office. It is true 
that, unlike his Bolshevist friends, they have often 
shown themselves to be not "profoundly wise." Oc- 
casionally they have made mistakes, as we must all sor- 
rowfully acknowledge. It is true that they are "lim- 
ited, uneducated" persons, compared with the present 
rulers of Russia, who "know all about social and eco- 
nomic questions," and who in all other matters are ab- 
solutely "beyond the limit." It is true again, that our 
diplomatists have not Mr. Wells's "clarity" of judg- 
ment, and that they have a different standard of "prob- 
able honesty" from that erected by the Soviets. Our 
Foreign Office officials are guilty of all these deficien- 
cies. But they have the immense advantage of being 
"crudely ig-norant" in Mr. Wells's "world of modern 
ideas." And this of itself is a high qualification for 
handling affairs in any part of the globe. 

I am, however, a little dubious about asking Mr. 
Wells to relax his gi'ip upon the situation in Africa. 
For, with his passion for getting grips upon situations, 
no continent is safe from his superintendence. He may 
next tighten his gi'asp upon Europe, and stretch it over 
Asia, and South America, and the Solomon Islands — 
so named, I believe, because the inliabitants are wise 
enough to devote themselves exclusively to the study of 
the Book of Proverbs, and to eschew social and economic 
questions, and what goes on in "the world of modern 
ideas." It follows from this, that most of them are even 
more "limited and uneducated," more "crudely ignor- 
ant" than our Foreign Office Staff. Indeed the Solo- 



Popular Education 205 

mon Islanders know next to nothing of "what really 
matters in real politics." The Solomon Islands would 
therefore appear to offer Mr. Wells a situation full of 
possibilities, and I am apprehensive that he may be 
tempted to get his next grip upon them. And I feel 
sure he will again prescribe International hot water as 
a remedy for their social evils. 

We all remember how delightfully Mr. Wells pro- 
phesied to us about machines, and how vividly he fore- 
told the war in the air. Would that he had remained 
content with prophesying about machines! Unfor- 
tunately he went on to prophesy about mankind. Now 
machines offer a relatively safe subject to prophesy 
about, for, within rather wide limits, they may be 
trusted to behave in a manner that approaches to the 
design of their constructor. But manlvind are not so 
docile as machines. I know not what may have been the 
design of the Constructor of mankind, but I am some- 
times driven to question whether mankind are behaving 
in strict accordance with it. The behaviour of machines 
is tolerably consistent, but the behaviour of mankind is 
obstinately erratic, and tragically baffling. For this 
reason, mankind are a very risky and elusive subject 
for prophecy, and Mr. Wells may well be excused if 
he sometimes goes astray in his predictions about them. 

I cannot, however, agree with Mr. Archibald Spof- 
forth, who, in his recently published "Noted English 
Seers," places Mr. W^ells rather below Old Moore in the 
rank of prophets. It may be true, as Mr. Spofforth 
argues, that Old Moore has lately been more success- 
ful in making lucky shots at futurity. But this is due, 
not so much to his professional skill in prophecy, as to 
mere chance; and Mr. Wells, who, it must be owned, 
has been a litttle unfortunate in his recent premonstra- 



206 Patriotism and 

tions, may confidently look to the law of averages to 
put him on a level with Old Moore in this respect. We 
must also remember that Old Moore has been longer 
in the business than Mr. Wells, and may well have 
profited from his many past failures to make events 
tally with his predictions. Under one of his hiero- 
glyphics for 1919, the elder prophet cautiously remarks, 
"Old Moore does not say that what we see in the pic- 
ture will be brought about." This modest and judi- 
cious attitude towards his own prognostications, is one 
that might be imitated by most prophets with great ad- 
vantage to their reputations. Would that all our social 
prophets had the wisdom and candour of Old Moore, 
and an equal courage to avow that what they fondly 
dream may not be realized ! 

Vagueness and wiliness are, I take it, the chief neces- 
sary qualities for any one who sets up as a prophet, and 
Mr. Wells is a little lacking in both these prime requi- 
sites for successful augury. However this may be, I 
cannot but think that Mr. Spofforth, in his lengthy com- 
parison of these two noted English seers, has done Mr. 
Wells an injustice when he estimates him as being, on 
the whole, rather less trustworthy in dealing with 
world-problems than Old Moore. I am convinced that 
Time will vindicate Mr. Wells, and that he will finally 
be adjudged a position amongst the major prophets, no 
less worthy, dignified, renowned, and unassailable, than 
that occupied by Old Moore. 

When we come to the matter of style and method, it 
must be conceded that Mr. Wells cannot compete with 
Old Moore in the management of majestic imagery, and 
flamboyant zoology. I have a weakness for gorgeous 
symbolism in prophecy. I doat upon scarlet ladies of 



Popular Education 207 

Babylon who frolic with seven-headed beasts; upon 
great red dragons with crowns on their heads, who stand 
waiting to devour newly-born babes ; upon chimeras with 
four faces, who go upon four sides, with wheels full of 
eyes; upon bears whose ribs are in their mouths and 
who joust with four-headed winged leopards while other 
strange creatures with freakish and superfluous horns 
butt into the fray — the whole menagerie forming a kind 
of sacred jig-saw puzzle for the edification of devout 
theological amateurs ; who, after enormous pains in put- 
ting the pieces together, find that it turns out to mean 
exactly what they wish it to mean. This is the only 
kind of prophecy that has met with any great success in 
foreshadowing large world-movements and events. Ten 
to one, something or somebody will come along to justify 
our forecast, if we only make it sufficiently obscure, and 
wait long enough. 

If Mr. Wells has anything profound to tell us about 
the future of Bolshevism, or Africa, or the Solomon 
Islands, cannot we persuade him to adopt this approved 
method of prophecy? It offers so many chances of 
hedging, if the prophet finds he has made a mistake. 
Better still, remembering with gratitude his shrewd and 
penetrating studies of character in "Tono-Bungay" and 
"Mr. Polly," and the many other brilliant and delight- 
ful things that have come from his pen, cannot we per- 
suade him to doff his tattered mantle of prophetic In- 
ternationalism, and relate to us some history of the 
English men and women whom he knows so well? I 
have every sympathy with his prophetic impulses. In- 
deed, I have prophetic impulses myself, as I fear is too 
evident. But future events being so capricious, I try 
to restrict myself to that less showy kind of prophecy. 



208 Patriotism and 

which hazards a conjecture, that astronomical and other 
conditions being favourable, the sun will rise to-mor- 
row morning. 

I have examined Mr. Wells's scheme for the Interna-' 
tional government of Africa with some circumspection, 
not because there is the least danger of its being adopted 
by our statesmen, but because it exhibits the defects and 
fallacies of most of these schemes for the International 
govermnent of mankind. Their common defect is that 
they are built in vacuous space, where there are no re- 
actions, and where many of them hang together well 
enough. When they are brought down to the solid 
earth, amongst actual conditions, and are applied to 
living men and women, they tumble to pieces. 

For instance, when a general settlement is made of 
African affairs and African territory, surely the South 
Africans, who have chiefly helped to win for us the Ger- 
man colonics, will have a large say in the matter. It 
is they, and not Mr. Wells, who have the right to coun- 
sel British policy in South and Central Africa. Mr. 
Wells leaves their aims and wishes out of the account. 
It is convenient for him to ignore them, because they 
would upset all his plans. Yet, gi-anted even that his 
aery scheme were practicable, it could not even be 
started without the consent and co-operation of our 
South African empire. Any attempt to internationalize 
Africa would probably meet with opposition from the 
South African government, would increase disaffection 
in that colony, would cause shai*p division in the Im- 
perial councils, and would tend to split to pieces the 
British Empire. What would it matter if the British 
Empire were split to pieces, so long as Mr. Wells's 
plans are not upset ? So he brings out his brand-new 
International constitution and, like most other Inter- 



Popular Education 209 

national projectors, carefully closes liis eyes to the ac- 
tual main facts and conditions. Thus does Mr. Wells 
get a grip of the situation in Africa. 

The fallacy of most of these International projectors 
is, that in looking after what they suppose to be the 
common ultimate interests of all mankind, they forget 
or ignore that all mankind have separate personal in- 
terests, and separate national interests. But the ma- 
jority of mankind will never trouble themselves about 
the ultimate interests of all mankind, or about anything 
but their immediate personal interests. !N'ow, thesa 
definite, discernible, personal interests are clearly di- 
vergent from, and are opposed to most of the personal 
interests of the majority of mankind, and to most of 
the international interests of mankind. Equally, the 
main national interests of any people are clearly di- 
vergent from, and are opposed to, the main national 
interests of other peoples, and to many international 
interests. And, as I have already shown, this oppo- 
sition of interests alternately takes the form of com- 
mercial conflict, and of actual war. If universal wis- 
dom and the League of Nations prevail, and war ceases 
from this time forth, then commercial warfare will be 
all the more fierce and deadly. And the victims of com- 
mercial warfare in the past, from tuberculosis and other 
diseases, and from toil, oppression, and starvation, if 
they could be counted, would immensely outnumber the 
victims of war in the field. 

But why not do away with both classes of victims in 
the future ? Ah, to be sure, why not ? Why not bring 
in an International Law making criminal all compe- 
tition and collision of interests, and put the whole mat- 
ter under the superintendence of Mr. Wells? Mean- 
time, let us seek to reduce, by every means in our pow- 



210 Patriotism and 

er, the number of both, classes of victims. But let us not' 
think that the coming commercial war will not exact 
its heavy toll and cruel sacrifice of life. Let us not 
dare to play thimble-rig with inexorable facts, or to set 
booby-traps for the Eternal. 

The majority of mankind have only very rare, in- 
definite, and casual international interests. Undoubt- 
edly it is to the interests of us all to live in a wise and 
perfect world, and to hasten the time when we may 
be all citizens of such a world, under a wise and per- 
fect International government. Meantime, the inter- 
est which an Englishman has in sustaining and strength- 
ening the fabric of the British Empire, is greater and 
more compulsive than the interest which he has in es- 
tablishing a world commonwealth. It is also an inter- 
est which is discernible, immediate, palpable. For in 
the present condition of things, it is certain that a world 
coramonwealth cannot be established without a long in- 
tervening period of revolution, chaos, and bloodshed? 
And how can an Englishman be sure that after the gen- 
eral hurly-burly of a social and political world earth- 
quake, he may not find himself in much worse circum- 
stances under a Red flag which waves and flaps over 
the universe, than under the Union Jack which gave 
him security to make his way in a prosperous and united 
British Empire. His present sure half-loaf is better 
than a very doubtful whole one ; and his chicken stewing 
in a British pot, is worth many more than two of the 
elusive Birds of Paradise that flutter in the bushes 
of the International Garden. 

Further, Internationalists always make the mistake 
of assuming that their schemes will be worked by per- 
fectly wise, honest, unselfish statesmen, superintend- 
ing a perfectly wise, honest, unselfish community. 



Popular Education 211 

Again, they are living in a vacuum, where there are 
no reactions. Mr. Wells perceives that our Foreign Of- 
fice is filled with incapable, uneducated, crudely igno- 
rant bunglers, like Mr. Balfour and Lord Robert Cecil. 
He would hustle them into obscurity, and replace 
them by statesmen who would quickly "reconstruct" 
this much mismanaged earth, and turn it into an In- 
ternational Utopia — presumably by a process similar to 
that by which his Bolshevist friends have "recon- 
structed" the Russian Empire, and made it such a de< 
lightful place for all classes to live in. 

We all thankfully recognize that in the past four 
years, many British Labour members have shown them- 
selves to be able, constructive statesmen and staunch 
patriots, who have rendered immense services to the 
country and the Allied cause. Some of them have ad- 
ministered Government departments with conspicuous 
ability and foresight. The present Food Controller is 
only one of many Labour statesmen, to whom an enor^ 
mous public debt of gratitude is due. Many of these 
Labour statesmen will assuredly be offered responsible 
positions in the next government, I see no reason why a 
Labour member should not be Foreign Minister, given 
the opportunity to show that he is qualified for the 
office. But by their general training and experience. 
Labour members will surely be more profitably em- 
ployed in departments that deal with internal affairs. 
From the nature of its operations, the Foreign Office 
should not be occupied by a statesman who avowedly 
represents a class, but by one who speaks for the 
whole nation. 

Mr. Wells would eject that "pretentious bluffer," 
Lord Robert Cecil, and would have our foreign affairs 
administered on International principles under instruc- 



212 Patriotism and 

tions from Labour. He assumes that in Africa, as in 
Russia, his International scheme would be worked by 
"profoundly wise," honest, unselfish statesmen, with 
no interests to serve but those of the International 
State. He also assumes that the whole population of 
Africa, black, white, and colored, would wisely and 
unselfishly cooperate with their beneficent rulers to the 
same beneficent ends. No wonder these International 
States are such charming places to live in, and their 
projectors so popular ! 

And having arranged things so happily for every- 
body, Mr. Wells, who sternly rebukes "flag-wagging" 
on behalf of the British Empire, unfurls a brand-new 
spacious banner of his own device, the Sun of Africa, 
and wags and waves it lustily over the continent that 
ho has so suddenly and marvellously regenerated by 
the simple process of giving it a paper International 
constitution. 

How easy it is to reform the world and make every- 
body happy and wise on paper! 

From whence does Mr. Wells propose to obtain that 
constant supply of wise, unselfish, honest statesmen, 
who alone could give permanent security in Africa or 
anywhere else? He would doubtless reply, from the 
ranks of Labour. Is he sure that even there he might 
not find "pretentious bluffers," who, though not so 
"crudely ignorant" as Lord Robert, and much better 
"acquainted with social and economic questions," and 
with "everything that really matters in real politics," 
might not be endowed with more than a very scanty 
measure of the "probable honesty" and "profound 
wisdom" which have been so conspicuously displayed bv 
his friends who are regenerating Russia on Interna- 
tional principles? 



Popular Education 213 

Has Mr. Wells noticed the disquieting fact, that 
when Labour has found a leader with powers of con- 
Btruetive statesmanship, and foresight, and balanced 
judgment, and who therefore can promise it only 
moderate and possible rations of happiness and com- 
fort — has Mr. Wells noticed how apt Labour is to 
throw him aside in favour of successive leaders who 
promise it larger and larger, and ever more impossible, 
rations of happiness and comfort? Who are the men 
who finally come to the top, and are inevitably chosen 
to carry out such vast and violent revolutionary 
changes as those which Mr. Wells advocates ? Are they 
ever responsible statesmen, or even capable politicians? 
Are they men of balanced judgment and unselfish 
aims? Are they men of probity in public and private 
affairs; men who in finance could be trusted with the 
cash in a shop till, much less with a national ex- 
chequer; men who in government of their fellows 
could be trusted to administer the affairs of a village, 
much less direct the destinies of a great Empire? 

The change to Internationalism that Mr. Wells pro- 
poses could not be realized without an upheaval which 
would break up our present constitution ; and he must 
know that in that upheaval it would not be our sane 
and moderate Labour politicians who would be the 
chosen directors of the whirlwind, and lords of the 
mad misrule and destruction that would follow. 

But Mr. Wells puts forth his International scheme as 
a summary of what Labour proposes and purposes. I 
know not what authority Mr. Wells has to proclaim 
himself as the spokesman of Labour in the matter of 
the future government of Africa, and in other large 
matters that concern the integrity and safety of the 
British Empire. I know not how far his wholesale and 



214 Patriotism and 

prolific fallacies represent the considered opinions of 
Labour. Labour has lately shown itself sharply div- 
ided on many national and international questions. I 
cannot think that the great body of Labour has so little 
political sagacity, as to hand over to International mis- 
direction and confusion, those African possessions in 
which it has so large and fruitful an interest. 

I will not believe that Labour, which, throughout the 
last agonizing four years has drained its blood and 
sweat to cement the British Empire ; which has racked 
its strength and manhood in aching, ceaseless toil ; which 
has sent forth in hundreds of thousands, its nameless 
unrewarded heroes and mai-tyrs to endure unendurable 
hardships and sufferings; which has dedicated itself to 
loathsome miseries and tortures, to savage butcheries 
and mutilations, to terror, disease, captivity, and hor- 
rible forms of death ; which has done all this in a spirit 
of such great resolve and cheerful self-sacrifice, that 
never has there been a moment in the long large 
crescendo of our past, when a man of our race could 
kindle with such exultant pride to cry out, "I am of this 
high lineage! I am the dear kinsman of the men who 
have done these things ! I am of the breed and blood 
royal of these smiths and miners and shopboys and 
porters and weavers and ploughmen! I am a fellow 
citizen with them in that great commonwealth, which 
they have rescued and re-purchased from destruction, 
and have established it on all the lands and all the seas, 
to be a large, rich heritage for their children and their 
children's children, till the last wave shall beat upon 
its shores, till the last breath shall be drawn through 
the nostrils of their seed, till the last echo of their re- 
sounding deeds shall have died away from the memory 
of mankind !" — I cannot believe that Labour will now 



Popular Education 215 

set itself to undo the stupendous work it has accom- 
plished in the last four years, that having built up the 
British Empire and buttressed and fortified it on all 
sides, Labour will now pull down the stones its own 
hands have laid, and give over to domestic treason and 
internal disruption, the fortress that it has made impreg- 
nable to foreign malice and assault. 

I will not believe it. It is not possible. 

Forbid it, you its true leaders, who have kept your 
troth to England, who have not turned aside to traffic 
with wordsters and palterers, who, through all doubts 
and perils, have held your fellows resolute and inflexible 
to our triumphant goal ! Hold them still resolute and 
inflexible to preserve and possess through long years of 
peace what they have won by the anguish and sacrifices 
of war! Protect them still from the crazy sophistries 
and treacheries of their busy enemies within their own 
ranks! You, who have rallied them to defeat the 
German hosts, safeguard them now from defeating 
themselves ! 

Forbid it, you have nursed our stricken and 
mended our broken ones, and put new blood into their 
veins and new muscle into their limbs, and sent them 
forth, addressed again to the interminable fight, with all 
the old stubborn race pluck and spunk ! Forbid it, you 
yeowomen of England, and all you who have trained 
your fingers to strange new tasks, and stood so man- 
fully behind your men, and put shells into their guns, 
and fledged their wings, and fed their wants, and, in 
countless unaccustomed ways, have shown yourselves 
their equals in tireless endeavour, unshaken fortitude, 
and patient endurance to the end. !N"ow that your 
voices will be heard in the councils of the nation, raise 
them against this parcelling out of our great rich freo- 



2.1G Patriotism and 

hold into disordered plots for these International jerry- 
builders to g:irnl)Io away I 

Forbid it, yoii wlio have torn out pieces of your living 
flesh, husbands and lovers and sons, and thrown them 
uj)on llio nTd)losH(Hl c'arniii:;o ]\c;\\\, and now sit, widowed 
luul desolate, by hearths that will always be cold and 
cheerless, thoug-h the logs burn never so brightly ; and in 
lioines that will always be dark and empty, though you 
fill llieni with feasting and laughter! 

Forbid it, you who have spent haggard days and 
niglits in the stench and mire, in filtliy habourage with 
rats and feculence; sl(x>plc!ss and sbclterless under the 
fire of hell, and breatlied upon by choking green poison 
fumes; you who liavo blistered and staggered in the 
white heat and stagnant noon of Asian deserts, or lan- 
guished in feverous African swamps, and, fainting un- 
to death, have yet pursued and concpiered. You who 
have dug the graves of your smitten and slaughtered 
brothers, wherever you have marched and toiled and 
bled, will you come homo to dig the grave of that Em- 
pire whose bounds yon have enlarged and established, 
and will you cast its remains into dust and dishonour? 
You who have gash(>d and ripped out the entrails of the 
foul derma n monster, will you come homo to stab and 
dismeiid)er the Mother who bore you? 

Forbid it, you who have kept icy vigils on the deep, 
peering into the treacherous murk, in jeopardy every 
moment of blasting annihilation, stark frozen to the 
marrow, and frozen all without you and all within, save 
that evcr-bnrning sacrificial llame at your heart's core! 
Forbid it, you our stout llshermeu, who have lislied for 
lurking terrors, and hauled up iron-coated monsters, 
stored with murder and destruction ! Forbid it, you our 
dauntless merchant crews, breastplate of all our defence, 



Popular Education 217 

who havo furrowed your course through crowded death- 
traps, and kept for us the sovereignty of the seas ! Tx)ok 
that you keep it for us still ! K(!now and ro-swear and 
swear again your irrevocable oath, that these pirates and 
assassins shall bo chased from our ships and shores, and 
that all our ocean ways shall bo swept freo of them I 
Forbid that the Ship of our State, which holds all our 
treasure, should be scuttled by its own crew, and 
wrock(!d in wild uiiliglit(Hl gulfs on the uncharted rocka 
of barren International shores! 

Forbid it, you legions of our wounded, whoso bodies 
havo been mangled and pierced and broken tliat ]^jTigland 
might bo whole; remnants of humanity, who, in your 
honoured ]iv(;ry of pensioned service to her, shall go 
lamed and loitering to tiie end of your days; spectators 
of the cheerful bustle of daily life that you shall never 
share ! Forbid that your country's body should bo torn 
by internal dissension, and broken and gangrencnl by 
mad class strife! 

Fo)*bid it, you our nialtreatod banished ones, captives 
and bondslaves of inibi-iited taskmast(!i's! You who 
marched away in the red and tan glow of health, whose 
cheeks now wear the waxen pallor of mortality; frost- 
bitten, ii;ik(!d, tortured in the icy hell-blasts of Mitzau; 
macerated in tlio burning hell-depths of German salt 
mines — O England, avenge them! Shed no tear for 
their wrongs beyond all tears! Fity has drained her 
eyes, and Mercy is dead ! Make thy heart as the nether 
millstone, sharpen on it thy swift sword, and Strike! 
Strike! Strike! Spare not one of them that spared 
not thy martyred exiles! Let not one of them escape 
that did these things to thy sons! O England, avenge 
them ! — You, who wore ground down by the pestle of ro- 
morselosa savagery in the mortar of unutterable misery, 



218 Patriotism and 

and put to al)omi'naLlo usos; stai-vcd, beaten, apat upon, 
crippkid, doiilcd, defaced out of Iminan likeness; wan 
shadows of yourselves, poor ghosts and skeletons of men, 
if there is speech left between your wasted lips, say 
now a word to us! You whoso strength was sapped 
and spent for us, urgo us to take fresh strength from 
the memory of all that you endured I Forbid that wo 
should bo enslaved and driven about by tho tyrannous 
oppression of false doctrines, that our national will 
and purj)oso should bo sapped by sedition, and envy, and 
discord among ourselves! 

Forbid it, moat of all, you who havo fallen, and aro 
discharged from all warfare; men of all ranks and sta- 
tions and callings, who were equal in fearless acceptance 
of death, and aro now equal in lavish ascription of 
deathless renown; you, who, at our summons, gathered 
yourselves from all parts of tho earth, and arc now 
scaltercd and spilt in tho dust of three continents. 
Gather yourselves again in solemn concourse, and pass 
before us in troops and troops, and thousands, and tens 
of thousands — Ah, will the sum of you never bo told? 
And so young, tho many of you! Tiitho striplings, 
founts of bui'sting youth, darlings of your homes, and 
fondlings of your womenfolk ; side by side with fathers 
and husbands stricken down in their hard-mettled man- 
hood, and with seasoned veterans whom age had not 
touched — all contcm})orary now, all dishabited, cut off 
— Groat fellowship of our dead, whom neither the years 
nor tho void shall diss(!ver from us, forbid that we 
should bo dissevered from ourselves by factions and 
rancours; draw us into communion with you, and into 
closer comradeship with each other, to finish tho task 
you committed to us of welding and soldering together 
this vast commonwealth! Spread your healing hands 



Popular Education 219 

over our divisions and onniitioH; raovo amongat our 
counsels and nway ns lo unity of purpo.so and effort I' 
You whoso (!}'os aro (;1os(m1, and y(^t aco all t,liinp;s clearly, 
show us the jiath of national safely and {'r.WcMy, that, 
with sure unliesitatinf? stops, we may pursue it in the 
troubled days to cornel Co before us in our way and 
urge us to steadfast loyalty to ourselves 1 Forbid us to 
stray in vagabond, distracted allegiance to International 
despotism, and alliance with alien anarchies I Forbid 
us to throw tiio title-deeds of our J^'nipire inl,o the 
flames of insurrection and revolt! Forbid us to tear 
up that g7'cat bond of national ])ai'tnership and brother- 
hood which you signed with your blood! 

I cannot think that Labour, which, throughout the 
war, has followed its sure instinct of Patriotisni to the 
achievement of such splendid results, will now be coz- 
ened to abjure its faith and citizenship in tlie land that 
it has loved and saved, and made gn^at and powerful, 
liehold, then, you working men of England, the habi- 
tation that Internationalism is preparing for you in that 
Promis(!d Land of the future, wher(? tlie blind lead the 
blind, and tho deaf bawl crazy misdirections to the 
deaf, and madmen aro tho keepers of the mad ; where 
thieves rob thieves, and starvation preys uprm hunger, 
and murder slits the throat of nuirder. 

But wo aro deeply pledged to the recognition of 
Nationality, and to the fostering of Patriotism, as a 
principle of our future policy and action, wherever our 
power and influence extend. From the beginning of tho 
war, our statesmen, one after the other, have declared 
that wo have been fighting to restore and preserve the 
integrity of the small struggling nations; to sort them 
out in different races and breeds; to gather them within 
well-marked borders; to guarant«e them the right of 



220 Patriotism and 

ielf-govemmeiit ; to give them the means of working out 
their own destinies as distinct national communities, 
with their own laws, customs, forms of religion, and 
lines of future development. Is it not plain that if our 
war aims are achieved, we are setting free incalculable 
forces of Patriotism to consolidate each of these nations, 
and to crystallize their scattered atoms in adherence 
to their own government ? 

Do we suppose that as each nation settles down in 
order in its own territory, develops its resources, in- 
creases in population, and grows in prosperity, that its 
national aims and interests will not also he enlarged and 
specialized, and tend to become more pressing, and more 
encroaching? Do we suppose that, as its government 
becomes more stable and confirmed and powerful, it will 
not also become a stronger engine for securing and ad- 
vancing the separate aims and interests of the nation 
that it represents ? Do we suppose that these young na- 
tions, for whom we are now standing sponsors, will not 
grow up with wills and ambitions and interests of their 
own ; and this in proportion to their racial purity, and 
to their capacity for self-government; and all the more 
because they are young and vigorous? Do we suppose 
that they will not use their newly and dearly bought 
freedom to further their separate national interests and 
aims and ambitions ? Why, because some of us have a 
whimsy for Internationalism, should we think that the 
prevailing impulses of mankind will be arrested and 
reversed, and their conflicting movements be regulated 
and harmonized by the blather of our tongues? 

If the preponderating voice and power of Labour is 
now to direct our policy towards Internationalism, let 
us make haste to repudiate all the declarations that we 
have made of our aims in this war. For it is clear that 



Popular Education 221 

Internationalism and the right of a people to self-deter- 
mination are contradictions in terms. !N'or, judging 
from its present manifestations, is Internationalism 
likely to make the world a safe place for democracy, 
or a safe place for anything or anybody that is worthy 
of preservation. The only kind of International rule 
that, up to the present, has shown even the smallest 
promise of enforcing obedience to its decrees, is the In- 
ternational rule which the Kaiser set out to establish, 
and which may stand as a warning to the other 
iconoclasts who are seeking by quite other methods to 
introduce equal confusion into the world's affairs. "By 
opposite means," says Montaigne, "we reach the same 
ends." 

I have defined Internationalism as an attempt to sub- 
vert and supplant the established governments of the 
world, and to persuade the working classes of each 
nation that they owe their chief allegiance, not to their 
own country and its laws, but to the presidents and 
decrees of revolutionary tribunals established in the 
large capitals of the world. If Internationalism doea 
not mean this, what does it mean? 

It is imagined that these immense and radical changes 
in the constitution of human society can be brought 
about by gradual and peaceful means. Granted un- 
limited time, and a change in the instincts and passions 
of mankind, subduing them all to universal wisdom, 
sweet reasonableness, and unselfishness, it is possible 
that the ideals of Internationalists and Revolutionary 
Socialists may be realized. But what is there, in our 
experience of the actual world wherein we live, to lead 
us to think that the instincts and passions of average 
mankind will be magically and swiftly changed, that 
their standards of behaviour towards each other, 



222 Patriotism and 

■whether as individuals or nations, will be magically 
and swiftly raised, and tlieir material conditions magic- 
ally and swiftly improved, so as to render sucli a con- 
summation possible ? Is it not certain that tliese con- 
tinued attempts to substitute International class gov- 
ernment for separate national government, will lead to 
endless outbreaks of smouldering internecine war, dis- 
sipating all our national energies, and ending perhaps in 
another world-wide conflagi'ation ? 

I may bo told by some gentle theorists that Inter- 
nationalism does not mean what I have defined it to 
moan, that is merely an effusion of muddled, balmy 
amiability — a tumbler of mild altruism mixed with a 
teaspoonful of weak patriotism, or a tumbler of weak 
Patriotism flavoured with tincture of universal benevo- 
lence. We may leave these Laodoceans to stir tlieir 
tepid mixture in what proportions they choose, not 
troubling how much they water it down, or whether 
the dregs of their Patriotism settle at the bottom, or 
the scum of their Internationalism floats at the top. 

Doubtless Internationalism means different things to 
its various professors. If Internationalism means no 
more than the promotion of friendly relations between 
all the different peoples, the diffusion of goodwill and 
brothcrliness, the suppression of national prejudices and 
hatreds, the desire for fair dealing in all foreign tran- 
sactions, the settlement of diflicultles and disputes by 
peaceful means — if this is Internationalism, then there 
is no more fervid Internationalist than myself. But 
surely all these things are much more likely to be fos- 
tered and accomplished by separate stable governments, 
each chosen to represent the interests and claims of its 
own idiomorphic poo])le, than by an International tribu- 
nal set up to represent the class interests of a fraction 



Popular Education 223 

of each of the nations. What form of government 
could in the end be more shifty, despotic, cruel, and im- 
potent for any constructive work than such a tribunal ? 

At this moment, when the guns and bolls and cheers 
of victory aro echoing to each other, and the air is 
throbbing with our triumph, our one great fear is that 
our roiit(3d enemy will be unable to compose a stable 
government to treat with us, but will welter in a chaos 
of Internationalism and Anarchy. And then the sol- 
dier will have to be called in again — which is what we 
all wish to avoid. 

The world's first urgent need is for strong, ordered, 
separate national governments, supported by the un- 
divided allegiance of their respective peoples. My 
friend, Mr. William Archer, says ho knows many men 
in his own circle of acquaintance who would more will^ 
ingly die for an International State than for a national 
one. Surely wo have had enough bloodshed for the 
present. But if these enthusiasts force the Interna- 
tional movement into action, they will find ample oppor- 
tunities for securing martyrdom, and Mr. William 
Archer's circle of ac(puiintance, though diminished, will 
not, it is to be hoped, suffer any inconsolable loss by 
their deletion from it. DuJce et decorum est contra 
patriam, mfvi is a strangely perverted maxim to be 
heard from the lips of Englishmen, when hundreds of 
thousands of their countrymen liave lately died that 
they may live to utter crazy treason to their memories. 

Whosoever opens the gates of Internationalism to his 
fellow-citizens, leads them not to the gay garden Para- 
dise of their dreams, but to a darksome, quaking bog 
that scarcely yet offers sure ground to a single footfall, 
and will not for generations to come, bear the tramp- 
ling legions of humanity. 



224 Patriotism and 

For all tills, it is possible that we are being swept 
towards Internationalism. It may be that the Eternal 
purposes to drive the frenzied peoples before Him, 
helter-skelter in terror-stricken multitudes, stumbling 
and treading each olxhep under foot through blind 
mazes and barren wastes; till the vessels of modern 
civilization are broken, and its garments rent to rags; 
till man's life becomes as cheap as beast's ; till after long 
years of self-plunder, self-oppression and self-defeat, 
mankind find a large pleasant place where they may 
begin to lay the foundations of their goodly new civ- 
ilization. 

Who that has surveyed the huddling disorder and 
dirty aimless ugliness that sprawl over parts of the earth 
which were once as the garden of the Lord, and are now 
the nesting haunts where fraud, corruption, hog-bellied 
greed and smug stupidity, ignorance, sloth, misery, and 
disease bring forth after their kind — who that has 
looked round upon it, has not sometimes wished that one 
fierce levin flash might strike it and blast it all out of 
being? Who that has a brain to think and a heart to 
grieve, does not sympathize with those aims of Social- 
ism which are constructive and attainable by the pres- 
ent races of men, and are not plain conspiracies to rob 
the thrifty, the industrious, and the healthy, thereby to 
provide national endowment for the improvident, the 
lazy, the foolish, the diseased, and the vicious, giving 
all these a chartered right of unlimited breeding ? 

Accordingly, we find that, although much easier con- 
ditions of life have prevailed for the last two genera- 
tions amongst the masses in this country, than amongst 
the masses in France and Germany, yet the recruiting 
returns show a higher proportion of Englishmen that 



Popular Education 225 

are physically unfit than of Frenchmen and Gennans. 
Who would have thought it? Englishmen have been 
better fed, better clothed, better housed, than French- 
men and Germans, and yet a larger proportion of them 
are physically unfit! How unwelcome are facts, when 
they contradict our whimsies! 

Ponder it, you social reformers who are so vigorously 
"reconstructing" society. Face the fact, that easier 
general conditions of national existence have produced 
a larger proportion of physically unfit Englishmen and 
Englishwomen ! Face it, for it is a fact ! Dwell upon 
it, for it is a fact ! Ask yourselves what it means, for 
it is a fact! Ponder it, you who are seeking to outwit 
Nature by legislating that the lazy, the foolish, the 
vicious, the diseased may be sheltered from the rigours 
of her stern decrees, that they may "have a good time" 
and multiply exceedingly, so that their seed may pos- 
sess the earth — for a short, mad season. Have ready 
your midwives, to bring into the world them that will 
never be of any use when they are in it; and your 
schools and teachers to educate them that cannot learn ; 
and your parsons to prepare for heaven them that are 
not fit for earth; and your gTinning comedians to pro- 
vide unwholesome amusement for them that are not 
capable of wholesome work ; and your doctors to tinker 
their phthisicky frames that can only beget offspring 
of their own kind. Construct and reconstruct your 
whole cumbersome, complicated social incubator for 
hatching and cherishing wastrels ! Then when it has 
broken dovv^n, let us go humbly to ^Nature and say, "We 
have followed our whimsies; we have obeyed them in- 
stead of obeying your laws. We have tried to impose 
our conditions upon you, instead of accepting the condi- 



226 Patriotism and 

tions that you impose upon 113. We will try to cheat 
you no longer. Tell us over your laws again, that we 
may obey them and live." 

Can we affirm that even the constructive aims of 
Socialism, its many noble and beautiful ideals, are 
likely to be pursued and realized, or even understood, 
by the population around us, or by the children whom 
they will raise with tastes, manners, mental habits, and 
intellectual capacities on their own level ? How can any 
collective state of society bo above the general level of 
the men and women who foi-m that society ? And the 
general level of our tastes, our mental habits, the stand- 
ards of our vocabulary, our capacity for wise thought 
and rational enjoyment, our favourite views of life — all 
these may, as I have already said, be accurately gauged 
by anyone who will pay a round of visits to our most 
popular theatres. There he may learn what our great 
populace really admires, really enjoys, really under- 
stands; how it employs its leisure, and in what ways 
and upon what level it will be likely to employ whatever 
further leisure it obtains from socialistic legislation. 
Another accurate measure of all these tilings may be 
taken by glancing at the kind of literature in demand 
at our bookstalls. 

Hero I am suddenly reminded that I am addressing 
the Minister of Education. Lest you should think me 
disrespectful, sir, if I do not ocasionally offer you a few 
personal remarks, I will digress from my argument to 
congratulate you upon the fact that, although the mod- 
em English drama has recently met with some discour- 
agement from you, modern English literature is receiv- 
ing some attention in your schools. 

"Who is the author of 'The Sorrows of Satan' ?" was 
one of the questions that was recently put by one of 



Popular Education 227 

your teachers to a class of girls, the daughters of cot- 
tagers and labourers. With shame I confess that I am 
even more unversed in the writings of Miss Marie 
Corelli, than in the writings of Cicero. Indeed I have 
little further knowledge of Miss Corelli, than that in a 
recent case before the Stratford-on-Avon authorities, 
she claimed to be a Patriot. Her Patriotism was 
abundantly proved by the fact that she had been dis- 
covered hoarding food at the time of our greatest 
national necessity ; and perhaps even more convincingly 
by her authorship of "The Sorrows of Satan," and other 
kindred masterpieces. For my part, I could wish that 
her Patriotism had taken other forms. Still, Miss Marie 
Corelli, like Cicero, is a representative both of Patriot- 
ism and Literature. It is pleasing to find in her, a 
happy conjunction of the same qualities that we find 
in Cicero. Doubtless, sir, this is the reason that some 
knowledge of her works is considered a desirable item 
in the "general education" of working girls in the sys- 
tem that you are administering with such confidence in 
its economic results. The future husbands of these 
girls may also look with confidence to the domestic re- 
sults. And we who are willingly paying that these 
working girls may be taught such things as will tend 
to make tliem good wives, mothers and housekeepers, 
may feel additional confidence that our money is being 
well spent, when we learn that their teachers are train- 
ing them to study the works of Miss Marie Corelli. 
We shall take another look at Mr. Punch's cartoon 
and rubbing our hands with satisfaction, exclaim with 
him, "Pass Education Bill ! and All's Well !" 

Small wonder it is that our teachers are asking for 
increased pay. Surely a grateful nation will consider 
no salary too high for instructors whose literary tastes 



228 Patriotism and 

and general intellectual attainments are indicated by 
such questions as "Wlio was the author of 'The Sor- 
rows of Satan' ?" Would you consider it is an unpar- 
donable curiosity, sir, if I asked, who teaches your 
teachers ? 

Miss Corelli's status in English literature being thus 
confirmed, sir, by your system of Popular Education, 
and your system of Popular Education being thus justi- 
fied by the vogue of Miss Corelli amongst its teachers 
and scholars, we may now leave tlie matter of her in- 
dividual Patriotism, and return to the consideration of 
that other kind of National Patriotism, which every- 
where finds itself confronted and challenged by the 
gathering forces of Internationalism and revolutionary 
Socialism. 

Patriotism, having saved our skins, and secured our 
daily bread and butter ; having protected every home in 
England from the danger of foul violation and burning; 
having united and established our Empire and given us 
the hope and power of increasing future well-being and 
greatness — Patriotism having done all this for us, we 
are now asked to forswear and forsake it in favour of 
the political creed that has devastated and ruined Rus- 
sia, and threatens to disintegi-ate and work havoc in 
Central Europe. 

Will England, that through these past four years has 
saved herself by holding true to herself, be mad enough 
now to destroy herself by being false to herself? 

A telegram, just received from Petrograd, says that 
"the Bolshevists have passed a law that all single 
women over twenty are the property of the State, and 
all children over six weeks are to be handed to the State 
to be brought up and educated by the authorities. Com- 
plete disorder reigns, and a large number of women have 



Popular Education 229 

not found it possible to trace their babies." These 
rulers of Russia are they whom Mr. Wells finds "pro- 
foundly wise," and "shining clear," and "intimately 
acquainted with social and economic questions, and 
everything that really matters in real politics." Is not 
motherhood a social and economic question? Does it 
not lie at the root of most other social and economic 
questions ? Is not its sanctity a thing that matters su- 
premely in "real politics" ? Is it not the well-spring 
of a nation's life ? You English mothers, now that you 
have a choice of your rulers, will you choose such rulers 
as Mr. Wells recommends to you, who will not only 
rob all of us, even the poorest, of our material goods, 
but will also strip us bare of our more precious spiritual 
possessions ? 

I do not say that there is any immediate danger of 
Bolshevism being put into active working disorder in 
England. At present Vv^e are only dallying with its 
theories. I gladly own there is much sound common- 
sense in the heads of our working men, though I cannot 
allow, as Mr. Wells seems to claim, that all the wisdom 
and honesty in the community are to be found in the 
ranks of Labour, the rest of us being fools and idlers 
and thieves. We have won tlie war because the majority 
of our working men had the wisdom to follow and obey 
those of their leaders who had the instinct of Patriot- 
ism. We can win an even more glorious peace, if only 
our working men will have the wisdom to follow leaders 
who have the same instinct. 

There before us, plain for every one of us to see and 
read, stand the two signposts, the one guiding us to 
Patriotism, the other to Internationalism. There is no 
third road. We must take the one or the other. Look 
into what abysmal depths and quagmires we are urged 



230 Patriotism and 

by that linger whicli points us to Internationalism. See 
at the bottom, the hapless, hopeless masses of the Rus- 
sian people, floundering in a putrid cesspool of blood 
and misery and disease, every man's hand in his neigh- 
bour's pocket, or at his neighbour's throat. Midway 
down the slope are yelling, turbulent, hungry crowds, 
fighting amongst themselves, and pushing each other 
head foremost towards the pit of destruction. And here 
at the top, on a platfoi-m under tiio signpost of Inter- 
nationalism, are professional anarchists, bawling out 
thoir cat(;hwords and phrases, alongside amiable theo- 
rists and doctrinaires, with rose-colored spectacles glued 
over their myopic eyes, as they demonstrate to the dis- 
contented and slothful and ignorant amongst us, that 
tho filthy slough at tho bottom is a fairyland of pure 
delight, and issue detnilcd instructions for reaching it. 
There are many clear logical thinkers who are con- 
vinced Internationalists. But what is the use of con- 
vincing ourselves that tho world is flat, as we easily may. 
There is nuich evidence to support tho theory. What is 
the use of thinking cleai'ly, if we think wrongly ? Some 
of the clcaroat thinkers I have known, have been tho 
wrongest thinkers. Wo all know men whoso opinions 
we need not take the trouble to examine. We are sure 
from what wo know of the constitution of thoir minds, 
that they must infiillibly be wrong upon any subject. 
Their brains work upon facts with a reversed action. 
If wo find they agree with us on any matter, at once we 
begin to question our own judgment. Just as there are 
some amongst us whose physical diathesis is adapted to 
catch any zymotic disease that may bo raging, so there 
are others whoso mental dialhesis is adapted to catch 
any wrong opinion that may bo raging. God has made 
them so, as Dr. Watts remarks with piercing insight, 



Popular Education 231 

thus accurately accounting for human, as well a3 for 
canine peculiarities. Lot us leave these predestined 
Impossiblists in God's hands, for He alone is capable 
of dealing with them. 

But there are also many thoughtful, large-hearted 
men, who advocate Intornationalisni from high, dis- 
interested motives and genuine love of their kind. I 
would beg them to notice that Patriotism is an instinct, 
an emotion, a passion — not a political opinion. It is 
of little use to argue against it, and to show that it is 
guilty of follies and excesses, even of crimes. Nothing 
is more easy to prove tlian that Patriotism is fundamen- 
tally absurd and wrong. ]iut it is a fact. It exists. 
It persists. We cannot destroy it. 

If, by a decree of our will, International government 
could bo firmly established all the world over to-night, 
Patriotism would spring up to-morrow morning, and 
begin to choke it. In scattered places, amongst cliques 
and sects and races, Patriotism would germinate, and 
spread, and take possession of men's hearts and wills, 
and bind together in separate comnumitics, such of them 
as have common interests and aims and beliefs, till in 
a very short time it would bo plain that International 
government could not command th(!ir obedience, or com- 
pose their differences. And then the soldier would have 
to be called in — which is what wo all wish to avoid. 
When the soldier had done his work, we should find 
mankind segregated in new national groups, in now 
confines, under new flags, with new national aspirations 
and ambitions. And tho more we changed this new 
order, tho more it would remain tho same thing. 

It is a paradox, most annoying to theorists and doc- 
trinaires, that Internntionalism, wliich, by their shoW' 
ing, ought to reconcile mankind, does, as a matter of 



232 Patriotism and 

fact, dirido and antagonize mankind. I am speaking 
now of International government, or attempts at In- 
tomational government, symbolized by tbo Interna- 
tional flag, and claiming iillogiauco to it, in opposition 
to Patriotic governments symbolized by national flags. 
I am not speaking of internalional intercourse and 
friendliness, and of good understandings between all the 
nations, and of international laws and treaties to at- 
tain such objects as may 1)o for tbo general good, or for 
tbo good of several nations. Siicli international ar- 
rangements as tbeso are obviously for tlie benefit of 
mankind, and wo may hope to see a large and fruitful 
dovelopmcnt of many of tbcm. 

But they are advantageous because they are avow- 
edly contracted between separate nations, eacb under its 
own flag. They are practicable, atul likely to be pros- 
porous, to the ext(>nt that tlioy recognize the principle 
of nationality. That is to say, they acknowledge the 
very plain inct, that while all the peoples have a few 
interoHts in coirimon, and some of the ])eople3 have 
many interests in common, yet all the peoples can never 
have all interests in common, but must necessarily bo 
divided and opposed in their chief permanent inter- 
eats. 

ITntil Patriotism has welded and moulded a com- 
munity into a corporate social organism, until it has 
unified and solidified groups of kindred human beings 
into separate nations, no eirectivo friendly intoniational 
transactions can take i)lace. No benefits can como to 
humanity from Internationalism until Patriotism is al- 
ready established and operative in each nation, and 
only in the degree that Patriotism is established and 
operative. International goodwill and kindliness all 
tbo world over are what we all d(!siro. But these can 



Popular Education 233 

ouly flow through the chamiels that Patriotism has al- 
leadj cut for them. 

Will Internationalists please explain by what precise 
means concord, fellowship, and brotherhood can be pro- 
moted amongst the peoples, and their enmities dis- 
armed, except by forms and measures decreed by sep- 
arate, secure, national governments? Internationalism 
can only work for the welfare of mankind by the 
routes that Patriotism provides. Outside Patriotism, 
Internationalism does but gather together a rabble that 
embroils itself in ceaseless confusion, hatred, and anar- 
chy. One glance at the world's present distractions 
shows this plainly enough. Let us think out this mat- 
ter clearly and thoroughly, for the world's peace de- 
pends upon our rightly understanding it. Therefore 
let us think it out, once, and twice, and thrice, and yet 
again. I am not speaking now to them whose eyea 
cannot see the clearest facts, and whose minds cannot 
receive the plainest truths. 

Internationalism that claims allegiance to its flag, and 
works to supplant national government, is always and 
everywhere a centrifugal, disintegrating, destructive 
force, tending to the insecurity of mankind. Patriot- 
ism is always and everywhere a centripetal, constructive 
force, which by binding each separate nation in unity 
of aim and interest, makes its government an effective 
responsible instrument to deal with neighbouring gov- 
ernments, and to conduct international affairs with 
smoothness and decision. Therefore Patriotism, al- 
ways and everywhere tends to the general security of 
mankind. An equal diffusion of universal benevolence 
is a sure cause of disorder and strife. Like every other 
assertion of equality, it reacts and provokes inequali- 
ties. God won't have it. 



264 Patriotism and 

Why should we try to focus our amiability on every- 
body and everything, in the delusion that we are guid- 
ing the earth into milder realms of space, where per- 
petual sunshine reigns, and where everybody's circum- 
stances will be easy and pleasant ? 

It is indeed painfully true, that wo, who are deni- 
zens of this inferior planet in a quite insignificant solar 
system, have all too much reason for dissatisfaction 
with our beggarly circumscribed position in a universe 
of boundless dimensions and possibilities. Our condi- 
tions of life are pitiably hard and uncomfortable, when 
compared with those of the inhabitants of the planets 
that circle round Sirius. In each of these worlds every- 
body has a real "good time." The picture palaces and 
popular revues are of inconceivable magnificence, and 
sixpenny novels, by writers possessing imaginations 
even more gorgeous than Miss Corelli, are sold for a 
penny. The working day is rigorously restricted to six 
hours, and the weekly holiday, compulsory in all oc- 
cupations, begins every Thursday evening at five, and 
lasts till the following Wednesday morning at ten. Un- 
broken security, prosperity, and happiness are main- 
tained by a comprehensive system of State Insurance, 
which covers every member of the community from all 
damage, loss, evil, or misfortune arising from every 
cause whatsoever, including his own follies, extrava- 
gances, and wicked actions. All other desirable things 
are showered upon the lucky inhabitants in the same 
reckless profusion. Many of these advantages are un- 
questionably due to the inordinate amount of space 
which Sirius has managed to grab for himself and his 
satellites. But some credit must also be given to the 
admirable system of Popular Education (more enlight- 



Popular Education 235 

ened even than your own, sir), which is enforced in all 
the regions under his sway. 

Seeing how enviable are the conditions of life in the 
Sirian planets, there is much to be said for throwing in 
our lot with their inhabitants, and thus abolishing the 
glaring inequalities which we may well resent when we 
compare our situation with theirs. The report of the 
Interstellar Commission, appointed to consider the 
matter, with a view to the removal of these iniquitous 
inequalities, is full of pregnant suggestions. It recom- 
mends that, as soon as Internationalism is securely 
established on our own planet, steps should be taken to 
amalgamate our own solar system with the planetary 
system of Sirius, and to consolidate all the interests of 
all the inhabitants of both systems. Doubtless this sug- 
gestion will be carried into effect, when we have at- 
tended to the few minor matters that are now engag- 
ing our attention. 

We must not allow ourselves to be daunted by the 
magnitude of the conception. After all, it is only the 
legitimate development of our present Internationalist 
aims. JSTor, so far as I can see, will it be any more diflS- 
cult of achievement. We may take some assurance 
from the fact that the most prominent members of the 
Interstellar Commission are men who, for many years 
past, have been engineering the International movement 
on this earth. If I am any judge of character, these 
are not men who would be likely to embark us in any 
risky enterprise. 

We must proceed with great deliberation and prud- 
ence. We must eschew all violent methods. We must 
conduct our operations so as not to cause any undue 
concussions and disturbances in other planetary systems. 



236 Patriotism and 

We must remember that, most probably, their inhabit- 
ants, like ourselves, have a preference for an. easy, quiet 
life. Our first care must to inquire how this desirable 
amalgamation of our solar system with that of Sirius, 
can be brought about by peaceful means. It is consid- 
ered by the Interstellar Commission, that our object 
will be most easily and effectively gained by voting for 
it, in the same way that we are voting for Internation- 
alism, and in the same way that we voted there should be 
no war with Germany. 

Of course voting is the method that we all greatly 
prefer, and generally adopt, in settling such matters. I 
question, however, whether voting can be relied upon to 
avert the danger of a terrific celestial catastrophe, 
when the two systems approach each other. If there 
were a collision, both systems and all they contain 
would inevitably be reduced to gas. It would be a 
thousand pities if a scheme that promises so many 
blessings to mankind, were reduced to mere gas. How- 
ever, the more far-seeing Interstellarists are aware of 
this danger, and are providing a garden hose of un- 
usual diameter, which will be ready to turn on at the 
first sign of a conflagration. Still, I have my doubts. 

Then, again, the Sirian populations may have ex- 
travagant ideas of the terms on which the amalgama- 
tion can be arranged. They may take a selfish view of 
their own interests, and refuse to make those necessary 
concessions which, in justice to ourselves, we must de- 
mand if our conditions of life are to be levelled up to 
theirs, and perfect equality secured all round through- 
out the two systems. The whole matter needs our most 
careful consideration. 

Is it any more foolish to imagine that an amalgama- 
tion of our solar system with Sirius can be brought 



Popular Education 237 

about without a transcendent celestial catastrophe, than 
to imagine that an amalgamation of all the nations of 
the earth can be brought about without a transcendent 
terrestrial catastrophe? Are the Interstellarists any 
more visionary, impracticable, and deluded than the In- 
ternationalists ? l^ow that the malignant comet of war 
has struck the nations, and sent them reeling out of 
their orbits in wild oscillations, what madness is it to 
call upon the yet more destructive force of Internation- 
alism, to throw them into yet more violent collisions 
with each other, and to break up our whole terrestrial 
system in anarchy and ruin ? 

What madness is it that urges Englishmen to in* 
trigue against their own countiy, to hate and renounce 
their citizenship, and to clamour for such privileges 
and liberties and rights as are now enjoyed in Russia, 
and through all Central and Eastern Europe ? Has this 
kind, stupid, blundering mother of ours provided for us 
so badly, left us so small an inheritance, with such beg- 
garly hopes and honours and possessions, that we must 
make haste to disown her, and to proclaim ourselves 
the pauper bastards of promiscuous intercourse between 
drunken seditions and International whoredoms? 

But, it may be asked, if Patriotism is one of the 
universal instincts, how is it that so many thoughtful 
intelligent Englishmen are to be found who do not 
possess it? 

They do possess it — the vast majority of them. Even 
Mr. Wells had fits of temporary Patriotism, when every- 
one of us was in danger of being starved and held in 
slavery to Germany. There are amongst us a few of 
N'ature's freaks who are without the instinct of Patriot- 
ism, as there are other freaks without the religious 
instinct, and as there are women freaks without the 



238 Patriotism and 

maternal instinct. But these are rare exceptions, and 
Nature herself disowns and dismisses them. 

There are very few men living who are destitute of 
the instincts of Patriotism. Our Pacifists are super- 
abundantly endowed with it. They burn with its pur- 
est ardours — for every country but their own. Behold 
them all through the war, scheming to bring about the 
victory of Germany, and the defeat of England. Be- 
hold them now scheming that justice shall not be done 
to Germany, and that EngLind shall be baffled, and en- 
tangled, and condemned to pay the costs of Germany's 
crimes. 

Pacifism and Internationalism are really perverted 
and diseased forms of the instinct of Patriotism. They 
are something akin to those not infrequent perversions 
of other primal instincts, which may be related to phy- 
sical malformations, but which none the less we repro- 
bate and punish. Congenital moral perverts are abom- 
inable enough ; but the harm they work falls on a small 
circle, and chiefly upon themselves. But congenital 
political perverts are far more mischievous; for the 
harm they work falls on a large circle, and shakes the 
health and security of the whole social system. 

How do we know that Internationalism is a perverted 
instinct? By its results. All the primal instincts, 
when they are normal, bring fruitful and beneficial re- 
suits. When they are perverted, they bring evil results. 
Where and when has Internationalism brotight any- 
thing but confusion, revolt, riot and anarchy? If Inter- 
nationalism brings harmony and goodwill and pros- 
perity to the peoples of the earth, if it leads them to 
any goal but general strife and chaos and bankruptcy, 
then the Lord hath not spoken by me. 

I bring all these reasons and considerations before 



Popular Education 239 

you, sir, as Minister of Education, and as being largely 
responsible for the general drift and bias of political 
thought amongst tho masses in the next generation. I 
suppose no man has move influence and power than 
yourself in directing future public opinion to wise is- 
sues. At an imnicasurablo cost of lives and treasure, 
and at terrible hazard of national disaster and ruin, 
we neglected, in the last generation, to train our boys 
in their first duty of being ready to defend their coun- 
try. I gi-ant it is not likely tbat an equal danger will 
threaten us in tho future. It is scarcely likely that the 
same danger will threaten us. But having regard to 
the present unsettled condition of the world's affairs, 
who can toll what dangers and emergencies may arise 
during the next ten, or twenty, or forty years ? 

We insure our houses against fire, though in that 
minor matter we run not a hundredth part of the risk 
that we run in leaving ourselves uninsured, or half- 
insured, against any conflagi'ation that may start 
amongst tho inflamed peoples, and spread through our 
world-wide dominions. There are, I suppose, thousands 
of chances to one against a man's house being burnt 
down ; yet every one of us insures against it. Are tho 
chances so many as twenty to one that, in the course 
of a generation, a situation may not arise which it will 
be necessary for us to meet with a show of irresistible 
power, so that we may prevent another devastating and 
exhausting war ? Why should we, as a nation, neglect 
to insure our property, when every private citizen, run- 
ning not a hundredth part of the risk, does it as a 
matter of course? 

It may be replied that we have just freed ourselves 
from all immediate danger, and that this is a very in- 
opportune moment to raise such a question. On the 



240 Patriotism and 

contrary, I affirm that this is the most opportune mO' 
ment to decide upon our future policy in this matter. 
When a man has had two or three lucky reprieves from 
gaol and the gallows, is it not time for him to begin 
to ask himself whether, after all, there may not be 
some good, sound commonsense in the sixth and eighth 
commandments ? 

Twice, within twenty years, has the British Empire 
been saved from irrevocable ruin by the mercy of a 
toss-up. Twice has British civilization, all that a power- 
ful and beneficent England means for the peaceable and 
prosperous development of the world, all that she has 
accomplished for mankind, all that she might yet ac- 
complish — twice, within a short twenty years, has all 
this been hazarded and mortgaged to defeat and destruc- 
tion by our wilful blindness and folly, our resolute 
refusal to look at the plain facts of our national respon- 
sibilities and necessities. Twice, did I say ? Will our 
statesmen and generals tell us how many times in the 
last four years, England has hung over the precipice of 
irretrievable disaster, in jeopardy lest a mere finger- 
push of chance should send her reeling into the abyss ? 

Is not this the very moment to decide upon a clear 
future national policy, to give ourselves good reasons 
for it, that we may pursue it steadfastly, consistently, 
and continuously? Is not this the first question that 
we should consider in our plans of "reconsti*uction," 
seeing that it is fundamental, and underlies all other 
questions ; seeing that all our other national activities — 
educational, economic, industrial, social, must be shaped 
and directed according as we decide to take the road 
to Patriotism or to Internationalism? 

Again, sir, as in tlie earlier part of this letter, I urge 
you to leaven our whole system of Popular Education 



Popular Education 241 

with a sober, *resolute Patriotism, and to give all our 
boys, as part of their "general" education, some pre- 
liminary training in the first duty of every citizen, the 
defence of his country. 

Could any proposal be more unwelcome, more out- 
rageous, more unpopular ? Why, what is this but 
blatant militarism, undisguised Pnissianism, unholy 
soldier-worship, rank treason to humanity? 

"No, sir, my proposal tends to our national peace and 
security and prosperity. Is it we who would uphold 
militarism — we who have freely offered our dearest 
ones to crush it ; we who for long past, have never heard 
a knock at the door without a clutch at our heart 
strings, lest it tokened that the Dread Visitor had called 
at our home; we who, going out into the night to stay 
the fever of our thoughts, have never for months looked 
up at the moon and stars, without their lighting up our 
imagination with pictures of our dearest flesh, mangled, 
scattered, writhing in helpless agony and thirst under 
that same canopy, under those same beams that fell so 
gently upon us in the dreaming night landscape ? Is it 
we who are enamoured of militarism? Is it we who 
would seek to perpetuate it? 

!N"o, sir, my proposal that you should give all our 
boys some elementary drill and training in the defence 
of their country, aims at quite another mark than the 
establishment of militarism. It is indeed a proposal for 
that reduction of armaments, which we all see to be 
so urgent and necessary. 

Everyone, except the demented, will allow that in the 
unsettled condition of Europe, we shall be obliged to 
keep a standing army of small, or moderate, or consider- 
able dimensions, according as future circumstances may 
advise us. Everyone will allow that this standing army 



242 Patriotism and 

must be reduced to tlio smallest mimbera compatible 
with the security of our Empire. Now what could give 
us such coufidcnco to reduce that standing army to the 
very lowest limits of safety, as the knowledge that the 
instinct of Patriotism had been wisely encouraged in 
our masses, and that all our able males had received 
some rudimentary training, so that they might bo easily 
prepared to talce up ai-ms in an emergency? What 
could olYcr us such security against panic and alarm; 
and against tlio tragic and ridiculous necessity of hav- 
ing to use tlio methods of enlistment of 1914, of having 
again to badger, bribe, bully, shame, coax, and kick our 
recruits into doing their duty by means of advertising 
dodges worthy of a second-rate circus? 

What so much contributed to bring about this war as 
our enemy's notion that England could not be roused to 
fight? What would bo more likely to ensure the long 
future peace of the world than the knowledge that the 
man-power, tho energy and courage of the British 
Empire were alert and charged to spring into action the 
moment they were summoned ? Is it a long world-peace 
that we want? Then this is the way to obtain it. 

I will say but one hasty word about the physical and 
moral value of such training, of its reinforcement of the 
national health. What testimony to its efficacy could 
be more convincing than that of the daily proofs under 
our eyes, and of the evidence given by the United States 
recruiting officers as to tho marvelous instant restora- 
tion to health of the American city-bred populations 
that were brought under its cleansing and invigorating 
discipline? 

Again, if such physical training as I am advocating 
wore given to our boys of fourteen and fifteen, it need 
not take up much, or any of tlio time that should b« 



Popular Education 243 

rightly claimed by books and study. All healthy boya 
of that age need much vigorous muscular exercise, and 
it would be an economical expenditure of their time if 
they took that exercise in the form of drill and scouting, 
and other out-of-door rudimentary military excursions. 
To most of them, tliose would soon become pleasant and 
exhilarating occupations. 

And further, it is possible, and indeed likely, that if 
these boys are not given this elementary military train- 
ing in their school days, a great many of them will be 
called to undergo it in their later years, when it will be 
more irksome, will interfere to a largo extent with their 
ordinary employment, and will bo more expensive to the 
State. Surely, the most of them can more easily and 
economically spare an hour or two each day in their 
school years, than in their early manhood, when their 
best time and energy should be given to their daily tasks 
and vocations. 

And yet once more, it is better that they should re- 
ceive this training at school, than later in barracks, at 
an age when barrack life has necessarily some objec- 
tionable features and associations. 

As a measure of prudent national insurance, such as 
no citizen dare neglect in his private concerns; as a 
measure that mal<c3 for a higher standard of health in 
our cities; as a measure that oifers the easiest, surest, 
cheapest means of reducing our armaments to their low- 
est limit of safety; as a measure that tends to the 
security of the British Empire, and therefore tends to- 
wards the permanent peace of the world — for all these 
reasons, I urge you, sir, to give full play and fostering 
to the instinct of Patriotism in all our schools, and to 
make elementary military training a part of every boy's 
education. 



244 Patriotism and Education 

I urge this, without the least hope that you will adopt, 
or even consider, my proposal ; indeed, in the full knowl- 
edge that you will reject it; that so far as you do con- 
sider it, you will find it inconvenient and contrai-y to all 
your educational views and plans. It is dead against all 
the fashions and notions of the day in Popular Educa- 
tion. It is dead against the rising tide of political 
opinion. I know that, well enough. I turn to the latest 
estimate of our ISTational Debt. I ask myself how much 
of all this monstrous expenditure might have been 
spared if my proposal had been put into operation in 
the years of 1890-1900. I catch a malign smile on the 
face of the little cherub who sits up aloft to keep 
watch over human delusions and fallacies. I give him 
a friendly shrug. 



CHAPTER VI 

{Nov.— Deo. 1918— t/cot. 1919) 

Renewed Examination of Popular Educatioit^ 

AND ITS Effects 

Daring suggestion to educate our carpenters to make tables and 
chairs — Non-readers and non-regarders — The Hebrew Scriptures — 
Useful maxims from them for national guidance — These ancient 
rules of conduct! — Appeal to great permanent rules and prin- 
ciples — Have we got hold of sure rules and principles in Popu- 
lar Education? — Look at the facts — Double your Education rates! 
Treble them! Ignorance is the foe — The two most costly and mis- 
chievous kinds of ignorance — Proposal to levy supplementary 
Education rate for study of the great commandments — A matter 
for the parsons — England without a living credible religion — 
Manual labourers in angry revolt against their daily work — 
Professor Wallace on mistaken Education of Manual labourers 
— Forbidden to learn the things they will be mainly concerned 
to do — The young blacksmith who was educated to play the flute 
— Educational experts and Jane Austen's vicar — How nature es- 
tablishes a sound and vigorous race — Our care of child life — We 
shall have to call in the biologist — Breeding the unfit — More 
important to get ourselves rightly born than rightly educated — 
Summons to the biologist for guidance towards wise legislation 
— Better to fit manual labour to its job than to force it to its job 
— Popular Education responsible for widely spread vulgarity and 
shoddiness — Our Popular songs — The ornament of our common 
life — Our whole system of Popular Education needs to be built 
on a new basis — Questions we now ask ourselves in educating 
our masses — Questions we should ask ourselves — Broad division 
line between manual labour and brain labour — Necessary to esti- 
mate the amount of each, and educate our masses accordingly — 
Coal and iron district peopled exclusively by artists, scholars, 
and thinkers — The gas workers of Odessa — School teachers and 
rag pickers — Their rates of pay compared — An unsound social 
atructmre — Superficial universal mis-education the cause of uni- 
versal revolt — ^Nature has already sorted out our scholars for 

245 



246 Patriotism and 

us — Let us educate them discriminatcly — A million houses need- 
ed for working classes — Why not educate our children towards 
building them — Rate of wages quite unimportant — Social insta- 
bility again traced to absence of living credible religion and 
active working faith — Motto for a new Education Act — Nature 
about to bring in a stringent Uneducation Bill of her own. 



IV/TANY months have passed, sir, since I sat down 
-*'■'■ with the intention of writing you a short letter 
to point out what seemed to me the eccentric methods of 
your system of Popular Education — such, for instance, 
as the device for making good future cooks by inviting 
girls of fourteen to tell you what they know about Cicero 
and Miss Marie Corelli ; and again, your scheme for pro- 
viding sound household furniture for working class 
homos by carefully instructing our future carpenters in 
abstract matters of "general" education till they are 
eighteen. 

In my ignorance of the mysterious laws of cause and 
effect, I will not dare to affirm, against your better 
judgment, that these are not the best methods of getting 
good cookery and good household furniture. I do know 
that relishing palatable food for our indoor workers is 
one of the first necessities of our national life, and I do 
know that they are in no likely way of getting it, unless 
kindly ravens bring it to them, or unless tliey are taught 
to earn it and cook it for themselves. That sound house- 
hold carpentry is a great convenience of life, I have had 
constant reminders during the writing of this letter. 
And if you discover any lapses and flaws in the argu- 
ments I have brought before you, I hope, sir, you will 
generously ascribe them, not so much to my natural 
stupidity, as to my difficulty in collecting my thoughts 
while the door in tlie next room was dallying with its 
latch, and fitfully squeaking and moaning. 



Popular Education 247 

I suppose, sir, it would scarcely fall in with your 
system of "general" education, to allow some of us who 
may be inclined, to pay an additional education rate for 
the purpose of training some of our quite young urchins 
to be sound, skilled, general carpenters; meantime not 
neglecting to give them also such other education as 
would be surely useful to them and to the State. I sug- 
gest this simply as an experiment. It is true that it is 
an experiment of the kind that throughout all the past 
history of mankind has been successful. In the case of 
my old carpenter, it was the means of bringing him 
competence, and content with his daily work, and, I be- 
lieve, some pleasure and pride in doing it. It was also 
the means of providing good household carpentry for 
his fellow workers. 

However, we live in "a world of modern ideas," 
where facts are governed and regulated by our opinions, 
and where the past experience of mankind can offer us 
no guidance. We must make experiments amongst this 
new set of natural laws which we have ordained for the 
governance of the planet. 

Having regard, then, to the woeful condition of the 
carpentry in our working-class homes, may I respect- 
fully offer for your consideration, sir, the project I have 
outlined above; namely, that of training some hun- 
dreds or thousands of our boys who have a native apti- 
tude and liking for carpentry, in the early practice of 
that fine and useful art. And I suggest, sir, that you 
should begin this training at about the age of ten or 
eleven, that is to say, at the age when their hands 
are most pliable, and their minds most plastic and 
receptive of training. Of course the experiment can be 
easily dropped, the moment it is proved that the present 
system of training boys up to the age of eighteen in 



248 Patriotism and 

matters of abstract thought, provides a larger nnmber 
and a better quality of tables and chairs. 

I am aware that I cannot expect my suggestion will 
receive the least attention from you. Indeed, through- 
out my letter, I have written in the conviction that you 
will certainly be amongst my non-regarders, and prob- 
ably amongst my non-readers. 

'Now the non-regarder is practically the equivalent of 
the non-reader, and in this sense most of our popular 
books may be said to be without readers. Most of our 
popular plays also are seen by non-regarders ; and in 
this sense, are nightly acted for hundreds of nights to 
absent audiences. It is true that a vast number of 
people pay their money, and attend at the theatres, and 
clap their hands. And in the other case, a vast number 
of people buy the book, and turn over its pages, and 
look at its printed matter. Beyond this, nothing hap- 
pens, except that incidentally much valuable time is 
wasted, and a gi-eat quantity of valuable paper is de- 
stroyed. I fear, sir, tliis serious "economic injury" 
must be placed to the debit of Popular Education ; but 
doubtless it will be redressed, as you promise us, by 
giving our masses increased doses of that same "gen- 
eral education" which seems to have caused it. 

Be this as it may, an author may certainly take more 
pride in having a large number of non-readers, than in 
having a large number of readers who are non-regard- 
ers. For clearly it is more respectful to an author not 
to read him at all, than to read him and not to give heed 
to what he says. If you should read this book, sir, and 
not regard it, I shall feel that I have wasted some hours 
of your time; while I shall also have an uneasy sense 
that I have lost an unanswerable case by my unfortunate 
manner of stating it. I will therefore flatter myself by 



Popular Education 249 

counting you among my non-readers, whom already I 
number by hundreds of millions, and who may be 
trusted to increase beyond fabulous computation as the 
ages roll on. 

But even Shakespeare and Sir Hall Caine do not 
command an unlimited circulation, and there are some 
people who do not read the Bible. These are, of all 
men, the most to be pitied. For that bundle of strange 
old Hebrew books, for all their grotesque, misleading 
theology, their frequent contradictions, their childish 
science, their doubtful history, their monstrous fables 
and miracles, their occasional passages of shocking im- 
morality — for all these faults and errors, these strange 
old Hebrew books do yet show us the way of life, if we 
will but plant our feet discerningly upon their pre- 
cepts. Their rules of conduct make the beaten highway 
of mankind. 

Here is one simple maxim that stirs my memory: 
"Devise not evil against thy neighbour, seeing he dwell" 
eth securely by thee." Consider the universal potency 
and effect of it. Suppose that short simple precept to 
have been framed and hung in the German Foreign 
and War Offices a dozen years ago — and obeyed. Ger- 
many to-day would be a great, rich, prosperous nation, 
commanding the respect and honour and friendship 
of the world. Just that short simple precept of twelve 
words ! 

Invert it, and it has the same universal potency and 
effect. "Dwell not securely by thy neighbour, when he 
deviseth evil against thee." Suppose that short simple 
precept to have been framed and hung in our own 
Foreign and War Offices a dozen years ago — and 
obeyed. We should have been spared by far the greater 
part of the miseries and losses of the past four years, 



260 Patriotism and 

and our future naval supremacy would not now bi 
jeopardized. Just that short, simple precept I 

What magic "reconstructive" power have these old 
precepts over the character and circumstances of the 
men and the nations who obey them! The dozens of 
tliem that wo daily disobey and neglect! Yet they are 
our sure guides to individual, social, and national well- 
being and happiness. Only in the measure that we keep 
them, will our scliemes of "reconstruction" prosper, or 
be anything but whirling eddies of dust and wind and 
confusion. 

"A false balance is abomination to the Lord, but a 
just weight is his delight." A housewife in a London 
suburb tells me that there is not a neighbouring trades- 
man with whom she deals, who does not try daily cheats 
of pence and ounces. Petty er.ough, but what a patch 
of rottenness does it show in the texture of our every- 
day national life ! What a comment on our system of 
Popular Education Tliat concerns itself about Miss 
Marie Corelli, and apparently neglects the book of 
Provprbs ! 

"In all labour there is profit, but the talk of the lips 
tendeth to penury" — a verse that came forcibly to my 
mind a few nights ago, when I heard a dirty, shabby, 
disreputable, unshaven lounger announce to half-a-dozon 
of his like, "We're going to have Education! And 
we're going to have Our Rights !" — with a vicious em- 
phasis on the last two words that boded ill to anybody 
else on the planet who may happen to have Rights. 

"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when 
he is old he will not depart from it," is a maxim of 
sovereign universal value, as none of us will dispute. It 
seems, however, to offer to educational experts large 
opportunities for misapplication. 



Popular Education 251 

"Where thoro is no vision, the people perish, but ho 
that kecpcth tho law, happy is ho" — one might quote tho 
whole book, so full it is of saving wisdom and national 
instruction. 

These ancient niles of conduct 1 How oddly tlicy 
sound in a "world of modern ideas"! These cliangolesa 
precepts, that were old and serviceable to mankind when 
Abraham lived in tents on tho plain of Marare, and will 
be new and servicciablo to mankind when that plain of 
Mamre ahull be alive with airmen's wingal 

These old, old rules of life! I know not in what ad- 
verso circninstanees I may find myself in a year's time. 
I do know that I cannot be in any sitnation, however 
perplexed, where obedience to one or two of tliese rules 
will not brin*^ me oIT witli sc>lf-r(!sp(;ct, and with credit 
among my fellows. I know not in what emergencies 
and dangers my country may find itself in the course of 
tlie coming gcmei'utlons. I do know that whutov(ir 
changes and revolutions nmy shake and scatter tho 
peoples, it will be only by a schooled and united Pa- 
triotism that ]<>nglari(l shall bo safely brouglit through, 
and shall find hcj" lasting a(;curity and prosperity only 
by the submission of all classes to those great fixed 
principles of ordei-ly government which alone preserve 
nations from anarchy, dispersion, and ruin. 

Return, O England, to the commandments that from 
of old have made nations gi-eat, and to the precepts that 
have made men wise! Lay fast hold ujKjn them ! Write 
them on the table of thy heart ! Tie them about thy 
neck I So shall thy land have peace, and thy barns shall 
bo filled with plenty! Ho shall thy children inhei-it tho 
fatness of the earth, and there shall be no complaining 
in thy streets ! 

Surely if ever this nation was called upon to shape iti 



252 Patriotism and 

policy by great proved rules and principles, and not by 
party cries and expediencies, the tricks of tlie caucus, 
the whimsies of doctrinaires, the bellowings of dema- 
gogTies, and the clamours of the mob — surely it is called 
upon this day to choose this plain path of national 
safety. 

Throughout this letter I have sought to build all my 
arguments upon great permanent underlying rules, 
upon principles that are proved and vouched for by 
facts, and are not at the mercy of shifting currents of 
popular opinion. 

Would you say, sir, that, in this great matter of Pop- 
ular Education, we have got hold of sure rules and 
principles ? 

Look at the facts. Here is a system that was de- 
signed to give free education to as many children as 
our working classes choose to bring into the world, no 
matter how diseased, how mentally and physically unfit 
they may be. It was designed to give every one of 
these children a chance of rising to any position for 
which his natural abilities may qualify him, and to fit 
all of them to earn their living in circumstances that 
should ensure them tolerable comfort and content. Yet 
after fifty years of it, we find the majority of working 
men in the kingdom in open rebellion against their lot, 
in open rebellion against the plainest economic laws. 
And the more education we give them, the louder and 
angrier grows their discontent. 

Where is the fault ? Is it in the human stuff that 
you are moulding? The soundest part of it has just 
sho^^^l that it can be trained to accomplish the most 
heroic deeds the world has ever seen — ^when it obeys 
its leaders, and does not command them, as in politics. 

Is there not something wrong in the system by which 



Popular Education 253 

our working boys are trained for their civic duties, 
when the result is plainly seen to be a state of universal 
envy, discontent, and daily revolt against ordinary 
daily duties ? 

Who does not sympathize with our working men in 
their struggles for better conditions of life ? Who would 
not willingly pay for giving them such Education as 
will tend to bring about these better conditions, so far 
as they are attainable in a world which certainly was 
not constructed on the easy plan of giving all its in- 
habitants a good time, and the right to breed at the 
expense of the State? 

ISTational money cannot be better spent than upon 
Education which does really educate, which does really 
draw out, not indeed all the natural abilities of every 
child, but chiefly and continuously those natural abili- 
ties by which each child will have to earn his living, 
and thus obtain reasonable comfort and content for 
himself, and be of most service to his fellow citizens and 
the State. Whatever advanced "general" education he 
wants, he will get for himself. If he will not do this, 
you do but multiply labour and expense and confusion 
by forcing it upon him. However, let advanced "gen- 
eral" education be easily within the reach of all who are 
desirous of it, and are likely to profit by it. 

Double your Education rates, sir! Treble them, if 
you can but teach us the things it most concerns us to 
know, and yet more compulsively, the things it most 
concerns to do ! 

Ignorance is the foe. But what ignorance can be so 
mischievous and costly to the State, as ignorance of 
those plain precepts and rules of conduct which hold all 
human society together ? And next, what ignorance can 
be so mischievous and costly to the State as ignorance 



254 Patriotism and 

of our own particular work, ignorance of what our job 
is, and ignorance of the way to use our hands and tools 
when we have found our job. I think it would be safe 
to say that, after fifty years of Popular Education, 
these two kinds of Popular Ignorance are far more 
prevalent and widely spread in England to-day than 
they were before we had any National Education at 
all. 

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowl- 
edge." That is the true foundation stone of all Popu- 
lar Education. And tightly morticed to it are those 
old rules and precepts that I have glanced at — ^very 
granite wherewith to build up the character of our citi- 
zens, and the integrity of our public life. 

While I have been writing this letter, I have got into 
talk with some of your younger scholars of the poorer 
classes, and have asked them questions about their 
teachers, and their lessons, and their school work. Per- 
haps I was unfortunate in the specimens of boyhood 
whom I happened to meet ; perhaps their shyness tend- 
ed to obscure and confuse their answers. I will not 
make any sweeping assertion, but I received a strong 
impression that amongst your proteges of the ages of 
ten to fourteen there is a general and alarming igno- 
rance of the necessity for honesty and truthfulness. 
Doubtless this kind of ignorance is not confined to our 
street urchins, but is widely prevalent and "hronio 
amongst all classes in all nations. But when we find 
that a considerable body of our tradesmen regularly con- 
duct their business by a system of petty pilferings, it 
is permissible to suggest that classes should be held in 
all our national schools for the special study of the last 
six commandments and other obsolete rules of conduct, 
with demonstrations of their effect upon personal and 



Popular Education 255 

national character. If, sir, you should institute an in- 
quiry into the prevalence of this kind of ignorance 
amongst your scholars, and its effect upon the commun- 
ity in the next generation, and if, as the result of the 
inquiry, you should levy a supplementary Education 
rate for the study and enforcement of these command- 
ments, you shall find me your most cordial subscriber. 

It may again be urged that this is a matter for the 
parsons. But surely it is unfair to put this important 
Educational work upon the shoulders of the parsons, 
overburdened as they already are vt'ith their gigantic 
task of reconciling their different systems of theology 
amongst themselves, and of making them credible to our 
intelligence. When they have accomplished this stu- 
pendous w^ork, it vs^ill be time to ask for their help in 
rescuing the commandments from disuse and neglect. 
Meantime, it is clear that tlie working classes are largely 
rejecting both the theology, and the commandments. 
And England is left without a living credible religion. 
I often think that theology is the great enemy of re- 
ligion, as the English theatre is the great enemy of the 
English drama. 

Howbeit, sir, I jwill repeat that ignorance of these 
great commandments is one of the worst evils that can 
afflict a State, and that our system of Popular Education 
seems to be doing little to abolish it. What shall it avail, 
sir, though your scholars have passed all sorts of stand- 
ards, and know a little about Cloero, and a great deal 
about Miss Corelli, if they have not been grounded in 
the knowledge and practice of the great permanent rules 
of life and conduct ? Here is surely the first great busi- 
ness of Popular Education, the task that all its teachers 
should be set to pursue. I leave the matter to your 
caxeful consideration. 



256 Patriotism and 

The second, and next most miscliievous and costly 
kind of ignorance, is ignorance of our own particular 
work in the world. The dominant staring fact that 
meets both educational experts and politicians, is the 
fact that nearly every manual worker in the kingdom is 
in angry revolt against his daily job; does not merely 
take no pride in doing it well, but hates it, shirks it, 
performs it only by the stimulus of compulsion, or the 
lure of bribery; performs it, not as a duty and service 
to the community, but as a means of taxing the commun- 
ity, of whom the immense majority are his fellow 
workers. 

If you will make a careful inquiry, sir, you will find 
that, not only in carpentry, but also in dozens of other 
trades and callings, where honest, skilled workmanship 
is necessary for the daily comfort of us all, there is the 
same slackness and incapacity, the same ignorance of 
the craft, the same hatred of the work itself. The mo- 
tive thought that prompts our manual labourers to-day 
is not, "How can I do this job thoroughly and well, 
so that my fellow workers may benefit by my labour, 
while I shall equally benefit by their careful and honest 
work for me?" but, "How can I get through this job 
with the least trouble, and how can I get more pay for 
my next job?" 

From this it follows that a great deal of the work that 
we are doing for others, and that others are doing for 
us, has to be done over and over again. Three pairs of 
bad boots have to be made at far gi-eater cost of labour 
and time than one good pair. Three bad plays have to 
be written and produced at a greater cost of labour and 
time than one that demands serious thought from the 
author in writing it, and serious thought from the 



Popular Education 257 

audience in seeing it, and can therefore be seen many 
times with delight. And so the daily lives of most of 
us are pushing and worried and empty and mean, and 
are stripped of ornament and grace and thoughtful 
leisure. My friend Emery Walker tells me that a pic- 
ture map of the road from Hyde Park Corner to Ham- 
mersmith in the early nineteenth century, shows that 
there was not a single house that was not beautiful, or 
pleasing to look at. Consider how thoroughly those 
builders and carpenters must have been educated in the 
things that it most concerned them to do and make. 

Sir, the very plain meaning of this general rebellion 
of manual labour is that the great body of our workers 
are being educated away from tlieir individual life- 
work, instead of being educated towards it. The result 
is that the majority of them find it repulsive and un- 
bearable, shirk it, scamp it, and do it grudgingly, with 
ever louder grumblings and threats. Surely this points 
to some serious defect in the system of education that 
prepares them for it. How else do you account for 
the fact, that with higher wages and easier material 
conditions of living than have ever been known, the 
great body of manual labour throughout the kingdom is 
in constant and increasing rebellion ?' 

If Popular Education does not prepare our labouring 
classes for existence in an actual world where there is 
a tremendous amount of hard, dirty, disagreeable work 
to be done by somebody, and where none of them can 
have any comfort and content until that hard, dirty, 
disagreeable work is done, what impossible fairy land 
is Popular Education preparing our working classes 
to live in ? 

My general argument receives powerful confirmation 



258 Patriotism and 

from one who speaks from long practical experience of 
the working of our educational machine. In his "Open 
Letter to Mr. Lloyd George,"^ Professor Robert Wal- 
lace of Edinburgh University brought the most urgent 
and cogent reasons for the postponement and reconsid- 
eration of the English and Scotch Education Bills, then 
before Parliament. He clearly showed how mischievous 
their operation is likely to be in many ways. In a sec- 
ond pamphlet,^ containing his "Opening Lecture" this 
season, Professor Wallace brings further convincing evi- 
dence of the economic fallacy, the wasteful futility and 
the general impracticability of many of the clauses of 
these misconceived measures. He advises that some ap- 
proach be made in our education of manual workers 
to the old Scottish system, which not only trained and 
developed a sturdy, industrious, educated working and 
peasant class, but also gave us many able administrators 
and leading men in all the professions, thus conspicu- 
ously helping to build up the Empire. If N'ational 
Education is to be judged by results, surely that old 
Scotch system offers us many features that might be 
most usefully and beneficially copied and embodied in 
our educational legislation. 

Professor Wallace arrives at the conclusion that the 
education of manual labour throughout the country is 
being mainly conducted on vicious first principles, and 
towards consequences that will be increasingly disad- 
vantageous and disastrous, alike to the working classes 
themselves and to the State. I have not the practical 
experience of Professor Wallace, and can only judge by 

*"Open Letter to Mr. Lloyd George" (Oliver and Boyd, Edin- 
burgh), 2d. 

""Opening Lecture," by Robert Wallace (Oliver and Boyd, 
Edinburgh), 6d. 



Popular Education 259 

results. Sir, our workers are being largely educated 
away from realities, and ignorance itself is better than 
such, an education. 

Professor Wallace's unanswerable letter to Mr. Lloyd 
George was disregarded by the Prime Minister him- 
self, and by the late Parliament. Will the new Parlia- 
ment set itself to search thoroughly into this most press- 
ing matter of "reconstruction" ? Doubtless it will con- 
tain an increasing number of members who will try a 
tussle and a juggle with eternal economic laws, like men 
who should construct a barometer to regulate the 
weather, and give us as much sunshine as we would 
like. 

Meantime, sir, there are those million or thereabouts 
of houses to be built, and an infinite amount of other 
hard manual labour to be done for the working classes. 
Again, in my ignorance of the mysterious laws of cause 
and effect, I will not dare to affirm against your better 
judgment, that the execution of all this accumulating 
manual work may not be furthered by your simple ex- 
pedient of keeping all our vigorous young labourers in 
continuation classes till they are eighteen, there to be 
employed in learning things that most of them do not 
wish to know, that many of them cannot comprehend, 
and that would be useless to the majority if they could 
comprehend them. And this at a time when nearly 
every working man in the kingdom is dissatisfied with 
bis lot, and is likely to be in constant insurrection, 
striking for higher wages and shorter hours ! 

With this prospect before us, you will permit me, 
sir, to watch the working of your experiment with a 
legitimate curiosity, and an earnest hope that for the 
sake of the working classes themselves it may prove 
successful ; at the same time holding myseK in readiness 



260 Patriotism and 

to tender you at any moment the sympathy which Jove 
feels with a good man struggling with adversity. 

Do I grudge our working classes any good, or com- 
fort, or knowledge, or luxury that it may be possible 
for them to obtain, and to keep in their possession, and 
bequeath to their children ? These workers of England ! 
What kindness, what lovableness, what native humour 
and shrewd good sense, what generosity, patience, and 
stubborn endurance, are to be found amongst them ! 
There is not one of them who can wish any real and 
lasting good for himself that I do not wish for him, 
and would not help him to attain — so far as it is at- 
tainable, and is aidant to the general security and civili- 
zation of the State, Surely the working classes of this 
country are as capable of groat accomplishments and 
constructive work in peace, as they have shown them- 
selves capable of gi'cat accomplishments and exalted 
heroism in war. If only they will find the right leaders, 
and if only they will suffer themselves to be led ! 

It is estimated that 85 per cent.^ of the children un- 
der your jurisdiction, sir, belong to the class of manual 
workers, or of those who will have to earn their living 
by routine or mechanical operations where the hand is 
employed rather than the brain. With this 85 per cent. 
in our minds, I beg most respectfully, sir, to offer for 
your consideration this general maxim, as a first prin- 
ciple that should inform our entire system of Popular 
Education — "Future manual workers shall, so far as 
possible, be allowed and encouraged to learn those things 
that they will be mainly concerned to do, and shall not 
be forced to learn those things that they will be only 
remotely concerned to l-now." Our present system of 
Popular Education is based upon the opposite principle, 
* Professor Wallace, "Open Letter to Mr. Lloyd George." 



Popular Education 261 

which declares: "Future manual workers shall be for- 
bidden to learn those things that they will be mainly 
concerned to do, and shall be forced to learn those thinga 
that they will be only remotely concerned to hnow." 

That is the principle which has guided experts in 
education for the last generation, and your new Act 
asserts it with gathering force. Hence it is that almost 
universal discontent prevails amongst the working 
classes, and hence it is that much of the necessary ordi- 
nary mechanical work of our daily lives is shirked and 
scamped, and is being done with increasing friction, 
and at an increasing cost to the nation — that is, at an 
increasing cost to the working classes who form the bulk 
of the nation. What other results could we expect? 
What but larger results of the same sort can we exp«ct 
in the future ? 

The whole matter is governed by the well-known 
physiological law, which may be summarized thus : "All 
exercises of our muscles and nerves tend to become less 
irksome, more agreeable, and more effectual, the earlier 
they are learned, and tlie longer they are practised." 

When we remember that 85 per cent, or thereabouts 
of our population will have to earn their living, and 
to contribute to the prosperity of the State by the exer- 
cise of certain muscles trained in various ways, it seems 
a strange system of education that forbids them to exer- 
cise these muscles, and forces them all to an unwelcome 
irritation of irrelevant brain centres. The young black- 
smith who was prepared for his profession by means 
of lessons on the flute up to the age of eighteen, never 
mastered his craft, and was always dissatisfied with it. 
ITor did he become so much as a passable musician, 
though he had grown to believe that this was his true 
vocation. The horses in that neighbourhood were very 



262 Patriotism and 

badly shod, and he was constantly kicked about the 
forge. One day he was permanently disabled by th« 
hoof of a recalcitrant animal, who did not like his ama- 
teur method of shoeing, and whom he had vainly tried 
to soothe by a solo on the flute. He spent the remainder 
of his days giving lectures on the faulty structure of 
society in the taproom of the "Blue Lion." 

I have sometimes wondered whether experts in edu- 
cation have ever noticed how exquisite an instrument is 
the human hand, how quickly it responds to instruction, 
how infinitely more worthy of trust it is than the human 
brain, how far more certain of success in its operations. 
Now 85 per cent, of our population have, willy-nilly, to 
earn their livings by their hands, in tasks that scarcely 
make any demand upon the brains. Surely, the first 
question we have to ask ourselves is this: "How can 
these tasks be made the least irksome, the most tolerable, 
the most agreeable to the workers, so that they may have 
the greatest comfort and content, and perform them with 
goodwill and to the best of their ability, to the end that 
the whole community, of whom 85 per cent, are the 
workers themselves, shall receive the greatest benefit ?" 

Bearing in mind the physiological law that governs 
the whole matter, that all bodily activities become more 
agreeable by repetition, that all conditions of life be- 
come more bearable the longer we are used to them, we 
may vary the question, and put it thus : "How shall we 
educate 85 per cent, of our boys and girls, so that in 
after life the exercise of their muscles and hands in their 
daily duties shall not be grievous to them, or appear 
degrading; so that such work as carpentry shall give 
them satisfaction and pleasure; so that even such work 
as mining and iron puddling shall, by habit and con- 
firmation, become acceptable or at least endurable, and 



Popular Education 263 

shall not provoke them to incessant discontent and rebel- 
lion?" 

That, sir, is the first and chief problem of Popular 
JEducation. Just that, and not: "How can we force the 
greatest number of these boys and girls to pass certain 
standards of secondary education, despite their faculties 
and their inclinations, despite the obvious fact that most 
of them have inherited more muscle than brains, de- 
spite the fact that most of the knowledge so pumped into 
them will filter out in a month, and that what is re* 
tained will be very doubtfully and indirectly of any use 
to them ?" 

This last is the question which educational experts are 
now busily asking themselves. Being concerned with 
Education rather than with Life, they have come to 
think that Life is a preparation for Education instead of 
seeing that Education is a preparation for Life. They 
are like Jane Austen's vicar, who, being fond of gruel 
himself, and finding it agreeable to his digestion, sup- 
posed it to be equally agreeable and nourishing to every- 
body else, and set down rU his hungry guests to a meal 
of slops. 

It is primarily a question of getting us all into a habit 
of proficiency and reasonable content in our individual 
work and duty, not of getting us all to pass standards in 
certain accomplishments, though this may be desirable 
when once our first object is achieved. Would you say, 
sir, that the majority of the scholars who have passed 
through our national schools, have been trained into a 
habit of proficiency and reasonable content in their in- 
dividual work and duty, when the whole industrial 
world is constantly in a state of sulky discontent, or of 
obstructive revolt? Would you say, sir, that the "eco- 
nomic injury" done to the country from this cause, does 



264 Patriotism and 

not far outweigh whatever economic benefit may result 
from indiscriminately forcing advanced "general" edu- 
cation upon everybody ? 

What habit can be more wholesome, more fruitful 
with good results to the community, and therefore more 
necessary to he taught, than the habit of getting our 
own living — and this as early as possible, provided only 
that our health does not suffer too severely? 

This is a vexed and difficult question. It is not to be 
solved by a blind benevolence that hastens to endow and 
multiply weakness and misery and disease, heedless of 
all the reactions it sets up in the average health and 
strength of the community. In this sharpest battle and 
scurry of life whereto we are all conscripted, it must 
needs be that many of us shall be maimed, and that 
some of us shall fall. It must needs be that the health 
of many of us shall suffer, and that the lives of some of 
us shall be shortened and sacrificed by reason of the 
daily labour that falls to our lot. For this is the way 
that iN'ature takes to establish a sound and vigorous race. 

It happened some years ago, that in June I was in 
the South of France, in July I was in Brittany, in Au- 
gust I was in the Isle of Arran. On the slopes of the 
Maritime Alps, the sun makes the conditions of life 
easy, and does most of the labour in the gardens and 
vineyards and olive orchards. Yet the peasants gen- 
erally were decrepit and degraded ; many of them wera 
broken with toil and old at thirty. In Brittany, where 
the climate is harsher and more bracing, the appearance 
and bearing of the peasantry plainly declared a higher 
average of health; there was a good show of robust 
manhood amongst a general population containing many 
middling and sickly ones. But in the Isle of Arran, 
where the sun gives small encouragement to laziness, 



Popular Education 265 

where for generations the stern climate has flogged the 
peasants to constant exertion to gain their daily bread, 
where each remorseless winter has hurried the phthis- 
ioky and weakly ones to the churchyard, and stayed 
them from breeding their like — under these stem con- 
ditions, I saw not one man, woman, or child, who did 
not carry a certificate of vigorous health in his face. 

Clearly we are not living in a world where every 
child's physical constitution and mental capacity can be 
developed to the utmost. Let us indeed cherish our 
child-life as our most valuable and dearest national 
asset, but let us not cherish it so unwisely as to breed 
an increasing proportion of children who will be un- 
able to meet the actual conditions and inevitable hard- 
ships of life. Let us beware of reactions. If there is 
gome soul of goodness in things evil, so also there is some 
soul of evil in things that are good in themselves — 
even in our care of child-life. And we may be sure 
that N"ature, with her thoughtful, kindly cruelty, will 
distil it out. 

The doctors are doubtless looking into this matter, 
and can give us much good advice. But the doctors are 
chiefly concerned to show us how to save the weak, 
rather than how to breed the strong. We shall have to 
call in the biologist. 

In my ignorance and presumption, I have already 
offered you so much unpalatable advice, sir, that I pause 
before I overween myself still further. Yet I will dare 
to say that the biologist stands behind you and over you 
in this matter of Popular Education, as he stands be- 
hind and over so many of our social reformers and poli- 
ticians, who never suspect his presence. If 85 per cent, 
of our population have to get their living by manual 
labour, it is clearly necessary that we should, first of 



266 Patriotism and 

all, breed a hardy population, whose physique and po- 
tential muscular power roughly approximate to our na- 
tional requirements. If this is not being done, inevitr 
ably wo shall have to face constant and increasing "la- 
bour imrest," ever threatening us with social disinte- 
gration. 

This question is more important than Education 
itself, seeing that it is precedent, and must finally gov- 
ern the methods, the amount, the variety, and the dis- 
tribution of the Education that we give to our masses. 
For before we begin to educate our children at all, it is 
surely necesssary for us to inquire how we can educate 
them in such a way as to enable them to get their living 
by means that are within their capacities, and by activi- 
ties that are, as far as possible, congenial to them. 

It is disquieting to hear from the Prime Minister that 
England, under easier conditions, has been breeding a 
greater proportion of physically unfit than Germany 
and France. Before we trouble any further about 
Education, perhaps we had better go to the biologist, 
and ask him a few questions, such as : "Are we keeping 
an increasing balance of average physical health amongst 
our workers? Is their physique declining, or is it not 
improving at the same rate as that of certain other na- 
tions ? Which way are we tending ? Are we breeding 
a race hardy enough to endure the tremendous physical 
strain and the fierce competition of the coming years, 
and to thrive under them ?" If the biologist cannot give 
us satisfactory answers to these questions, it would be 
wise to put aside most other educational and political 
matters, and set to work under his direction to fortify 
the physical health of the nation. Certainly no other 
matter of internal "reconstruction" can be so pressing 
as this, or so loudly demand instant inquiry. 



Popular Education 267 

I am sure, sir, you will readily admit that the Minis- 
stry of Education is directly concerned to get these 
questions answered by the biologist. For if the biolo- 
gist cannot reassure us upon this vital matter, you will 
be in the unwelcome position of giving a more and more 
boimteous "general" education to a rising generation 
who will be less and less physically able to hold their 
own, and who will find it increasingly diflScult to earn 
their daily bread, while you are increasingly giving 
them all sorts of interesting information about most 
other subjects. 

Statistics are apt to take strange liberties vdth facts. 
When we remember how the common folk of England 
have proved themselves in the last four years, what grit 
and valour and endurance they have shown, we refuse to 
believe that the stock and root of the nation is unsound. 
But it is evident that we are breeding an increasing 
number of the physically and mentally unfit, who can- 
not by any means be educated in the wholesome habit 
of earning their own living. We are called to a pro- 
longed consultation with the biologist, for clearly it is 
more important to get ourselves rightly born, than to 
get ourselves rightly educated. 

In spite of the Prime Minister's recruiting statistics, 
we have faith that the biologist will give us a favourable 
general report on the health of the nation. At any 
rate, he can tell us whether we are on the right road; 
and he can show us where and how we may ease and 
avert the rigour of natural conditions without enfeebling 
our race; how we can breed an increasing number of 
citizens who will be delighted to find themselves in so 
pleasant a land as England, and delighted to do their 
share of the necessary work that has to be done. Pray 
tell us, Mr. Biologist, how we can rid ourselves of this 



268 Patriotism and 

festering rebellion, not against remedial ills, but 
against plain economic laws, against tbe fundamental 
conditions of human life. Instruct us liow we can shape 
our legislation so that, while not one waif or broken 
bit of humanity is left uncared for, we may yet dis- 
courage and forbid the multiplication of those whom 
Nature would reject and cast into outer darkness. Show 
us how we may be found helping her in her merciful 
work of repression, instead of zealously hindering her 
and defying her. 

Assuming that the biologist will relieve us of any, 
great anxiety as to the general physique of the nation, 
we might further ask him to tell us whether we are 
breeding muscles and brains in something approaching 
those proportions which the necessary manual and in- 
tellectual work of the country respectively demand. For 
there must be distress and insurrection if there is any 
great disparity and incompatibility between the amount 
and quality of the various kinds of labour to be per- 
formed, and the respective numbers and right propor- 
tions of the labourers who are physically or mentally 
capable of performing it. Hero again we may hope that 
the biologist will tell us that we are reasonably well sup- 
plied with raw human material in the right proportions. 

This granted, it is necessary that this vast bulk of 
human material should bo sorted out, and each division 
of it rightly trained and educated to its own work. And 
as the social machine will not work unless some 85 per 
cent, of this human material is employed in manual 
labour, it is surely wiser to fit it to its job, than to force 
it to its job, so that the work may be done without put- 
ting too great a strain on tlie labourer ; without injuring 
his self-respect and doing violence to his feelings; so 
that when he is building a house, ho may not feel that 



Popular Education 269 

he ought to be riding in his motor-car to his city office, 
with a fur rug over his knees, and a choice Havana 
between his lips. Doubtless he is more worthy to ride 
in his motor-car, and smoke choice Havanas than many 
men who are doing these things. Who is most worthy 
to ride in motor cars and smoke choice Havanas, is a 
terribly vexatious problem which seems to defy solu- 
tion. While we are trying to solve it to the satisfaction 
of everybody, the house does not get built, nor does 
any work get done. And then the working classes are 
the chief sufferers. I remember reading in the Ameri- 
can papers, an address delivered by Mr. Carnegie to the 
boys of the United States. He advised them all to fol- 
low his example, and they might all become eminent 
millionaires. 

Suppose, sir, that while 85 per cent, of our popula- 
tion will necessarily have to get their daily bread by 
manual labour, you are educating 85 per cent, or some 
large proportion of them, in such a way that instead of 
preparing themselves for manual labour, their chief 
hope is to dodge it, and to get their living in some "gen- 
teel" occupation in the ranlvs above it. Then clearly 
much of the manual work of the country will be badly 
done ; a vast number of badly trained, disappointed per- 
sons will be doing it in a half-hearted, discontented way ; 
and a great number of other badly-trained, disappointed 
persons will be found in those numerous quasi-genteel 
occupations which make little demand upon the muscles, 
and less upon the brains, and many of which are para- 
sitic, or useless to the community. 

Perhaps you may have noticed, sir, that one of the re- 
sults, or, at least, one of the accompaniments of Popular 
Education, is the growth of a large class, just above the 
actual labouring class, who have assimilated just enough 



270 Patriotism and 

"general education" to make hard working obnoxious to 
them, and who are mentally incapable of being educated 
so as to compete successfully for any worthy or digni- 
fied intellectual employment. Hence a certain vulgarity 
and shoddiness and vicious taste has spread through- 
out the ranks of tliis class, and downwards into large 
sections of the neighbouring labour classes, and upwards 
into large sections of the neighbouring middle classes. 
Hence the number of useless and hideous things that 
are ticketed in the shop windows, "Artistic ! Six pence 
three farthings." 

As I have said, we get a true measure of the value 
and tendency of Popular Education in our popular 
theatres. We also get it in our popular music. Our 
most popular songs are mainly models of bad taste in 
language, mated to coarse, empty jingle. They please 
our popularly educated public, drive triie lovers of music 
crazy for a few months, and are then forgotten. They 
are, perhaps, not much worse than many of the forgotten 
popular songs of past generations. But they are cer- 
tainly more empty and meaningless and vulgar. What 
it concerns us to note is that, with the increasing spread 
of Popular Education, we have almost lost the art of 
writing an English song that the common people can 
delight to sing, and that will not distress our true mu- 
sicians. Wo cannot put simple, sincere words convey- 
veying true feeling, to simple, sincere music conveying 
true feeling. Surely this implies that something is 
wrong with the general education of our people. For in 
all ages and communities, music has been the chief de- 
light and recreation and solace of the common folk. 
The popular songs of a people are windows into the 
minds and hearts of that people. They are the surest 
indicators and revealers of its intellectual and spiritual 



Popular Education 271 

condition. Judge then, sir, what is the intellectual and 
spiritual condition of the millions whom you are edu- 
cating, by their most popular songs. Would you think 
me impertinent if I were to send you a bundle of 
them ? 

Again we have to note that this vulgarity and vicioua 
taste so prevalent in our popular music, as in our gen- 
eral life, has spread downwards and upwards, and has 
infected all classes. We do not seem to be educating 
our great public; our great public seems to be educating 
its teachers. There is, however, a large body of our 
labouring classes who are as yet free from this vul- 
garity and vicious taste. They are those who have been 
the least under the influence of Popular Education. A 
labourer who is doing hard, useful work, may be dirty, 
ignorant, and brutal ; but he is not vulgar. Vulgarity 
has to be learnt; it has to be inculcated before it can be 
practised. 

After instilling the great commandments, the first 
main object of Popular Education is to train our masses 
so that they may do their individual daily work thor- 
oughly, and with reasonable content. The second main 
object of Popular Education is to train our masses to 
ornament their lives with simplicity, grace and unpre- 
tentious beauty. Would you say, sir, that Popular Edu- 
cation is in a fair way to attain either of these two 
main objects? Are not the majority of our labourers 
doing their work badly and half-heartedly? Are they 
not in a state of constant and growing revolt against it ? 
Is not the ornament of our common life for the most 
part trumpery, false, debased, vicious, whether we take 
the test of music, songs, plays, popular literature, or 
household furniture and decoration ? And are not these 
evils traceable to the fact that Popular Education is, 



272 Patriotism and 

to a gi'owing extent, teaching our masses the things that 
thej are not gi-eatly concerned to hnow, and is not teach- 
ing them the things that they are most concerned to do ? 
And the very plain, though indirect and unintentional, 
effect of this teaching is that manual labour is brought 
into discredit, and becomes abhorrent to the bulk of 
those who will have to earn their living by it ; while the 
correlative effect is that we are fostering the growth of 
a large class of miseducated sixpenny-three-farthing vul- 
garians, who will not get their living by their hands, 
and cannot usefully and worthily get it by their brains. 

Many of these have been most helpful during the war, 
and, by the temptation of high wages, have done well in 
those numerous temporary occupations where no spe- 
cial skill was required. But will there not be great dis- 
content and distress amongst them when we settle down 
to peace ? 

I have cordially allowed that one or two of the clauses 
in your new Education Act will afford opportunities for 
teaching some of the household arts and crafts; and 
doubtless good use will be made of these opportunities. 
But if we are to remedy the evils I have dwelt upon 
or avoid their increase, does not our whole system of 
Popular Education need to be built on a new basis ? 

"We now start by asking ourselves: 

"How can we keep our boys and girls from perform- 
ing any profitable manual labour in their earlier years ?" 

"How can we render their childhood useless to the 
community ?" 

"How can we force upon them all the largest amount 
of general' education, in the hope that some of it may, 
at some time, be useful to some of them ?" 

"How can we keep all of them at school as long as 
possible, thus preventing them from giving their best 



Popular Education 273 

energies to their daily work in those impressionable 
years when they most need to he confirmed in steady 
hahits of daily toil, and thus defrauding the community 
of a great deal of valuable and necessary labour that, 
being performed, would benefit the working classes 
chiefly, and would tend to bring them additional com- 
fort and content?" 

These are the questions we now ask ourselves in edu- 
cating our masses. Ought we not rather to ask our- 
selves : 

"How can we educate these boys and girls so that the 
manual labour by which most of them will have to get 
their living, will in after years be agreeable to them, 
or in the more exhausting occupations, will be as little 
oppressive and intolerable as the nature of the work 
permits ?" 

"Seeing that all experience teaches that those things 
are done best and most easily throughout life, which are 
most thoroughly learned in our earliest years, how can 
we, without injury to their health, give as many as pos- 
sible of these boys and girls some early training in their 
probable future callings, and allow them to practise 
these callings with profit to themselves and the commun- 
ity, at as early an age as possible ?" 

"In the case of those very numerous occupations for 
which no preparation can be given at school, and which 
will employ the vast majority of our scholars, how can 
we avoid the error of educating our future workers 
away from their future work, away from realities, to- 
wards other ends and aims, and in such a manner as 
will make them envious, sulky, discontented, and dil- 
atory in their work, to the serious 'economic injury' 
of the country, especially of the working classes ?" 

"How can we give to tlie bulk and average of these 



274 Patriotism and 

boys and girls sufficient 'general education' to meet the 
ordinary demands of daily life, without forcing upon 
all of them miscellaneous information and smatterings 
of accomplishments, which tend to mental sloppiness, 
to the spread of crude, bad tastes, and to the wide dif- 
fusion of spurious sixpenny-three-farthing culture?" 

"How can we give the greatest encouragement to any 
of these boys and girls who show more than average 
ability, or who possess some special gift or talent ? How 
can we throw open the gates of opportunity as widely to 
them as to the richest and highest in the land, so that 
their gift or ability may not be crushed and lost, but 
may have the freest course to declare and develop itself, 
and fructify to the general good ? How can we give to 
all of these such a suitable and special education, as 
will help them to rise to any high position for which 
they may be naturally fitted ?" 

"Seeing that universal, indiscriminate, 'general' edu- 
cation seems to lead to the general debasement of the 
public taste, to the extinction of originality and the sup- 
pression of genius, to the vulgarization of our amuse- 
ments, to the diffusion of sixpenny-three-farthing cul- 
ture, and the multiplication of sixpenny-three-farthing 
objects of art, how can we educate, or uneducate, or re- 
frain from educating our masses, so that whatever nat- 
ural sense of beauty they have, may not be deadened 
and perverted, and their leisure desecrated by senseless 
delights, but so that all the ornamentation of common 
lives and homes may be wise and thoughtful and exhil- 
arating and spread its charm over our whole national 
life?" 

"In the insecurities of the present, and the uncertain- 
ties of the future, in view of our great responsibilities 
all the world over, how can we give all our growing 



Popular Education 275 

boys some preliminary training in the defence of our 
Empire, as a duty that they may be called upon to fulfil, 
and that should be equally shared by all classes ? How 
can we make this training a pleasurable exercise, a 
physical and moral discipline to the boys, while making 
it also the foundation of our scheme of national de- 
fence, and a means of reducing our actual standing 
army to the lowest national requirements ?" 

These questions appear to indicate the general aims 
and scope of a system of Popular Education best fitted 
to the present needs of our nation, best fitted to develop 
the physical and mental capacities of the entire popula- 
tion to the greatest advantage of all, and therefore most 
likely to bring the greatest general comfort, prosperity, 
and content. Such a system of Popular Education 
would begin by recognizing the plain fact that there is 
a vast amount of manual labour to be done, and that 
this manual labour must necessarily occupy the chief 
hours and the best energies of the great majority of our 
population. 

Therefore, our first care should be to see that a suf- 
ficient majority is not educated to escape from manual 
labour, but so far as is possible, is educated to perform 
it, and this in the prime and very obvious interest of 
the working classes themselves. 

Thus, in spite of the private opinions and wishes of 
any of us, a broad division line is by necessity fijxed 
between those children who will have to get their living 
by the labour of their hands and muscles, and those who 
will have to get their living by the exercise of their 
brains. This line is very loose and ill-defined, and can 
be easily passed, but it is sufficiently distinct to separate 
the great body of our scholars into two main classes; 
and to mark them out for separate educational treat- 



276 Patriotism and 

ment, as soon as they have been thoroughly taught the 
great commandments, and have been given a quite ele- 
mentary training suitable to them all. 

Within these two main divisions of the work neces- 
sary to be done, there are several sub-divisions. There 
is scarcely any manual labour that does not call for 
some exercise of the brain ; there are many intellectual 
occupations that call for considerable dexterity of the 
hands. But, very roughly, the two main divisions of 
labour remain permanently distinct, and, after a certain 
age, call for quite separate educational treatment for 
the two classes of scholars. In a much less degree, the 
various subdivisions of labour within each of the main 
classes, call for differential education for the scholars 
who will have to get their living by occupations that de- 
mand differing aptitudes and differing physical or men- 
tal capacities. 

We will now turn from the work to be done to the 
boys and girls who will have to earn their living by 
doing it. 

We will assume that the biologist has satisfied us that 
the root and stock of the nation is sound, that it is not 
deteriorating in comparison with competing nations, and 
that the natural physical and mental capacities of our 
millions of boys and girls vary in the right proportions, 
that is, in some rough approximation and adaptability 
to the varied kinds and amounts of labour they will be 
called upon to perform. 

This adaptability of the quantity and qualitj'' of mus^ 
cles and brains respectively to the amount and kinds 
of manual and brain work to be done, is the first con- 
dition of any healthy and stable civilization. It is the 
keystone upon which rests the ultimate security of the 
State. A system of Popular Education which neglects 



Popular Education 277 

to train the best brains of the country to their best uses, 
stands obviously condemned. Much more deserving of 
much sterner condemnation, is a system of Popular 
Education which trains all the inferior brains of a 
country to uses for which they are naturally unfitted, 
and which neglects to train the hands and muscles of 
the country towards the work for which they are fitted, 
and which calls for performance before any effective 
brain work can be done at all. Surely such a system of 
Popular Education will prove to be more mischievous in 
the end, than a system of Popular Education which 
neglects to train its best brains to their best uses. For 
the best brains have an inveterate habit of educating 
themselves. They cannot help it, and indeed seem to 
be encouraged by difficulties, as ten thousands of in- 
stances prove. 

Therefore, it should be a chief concern of the Ministry 
of Education, firstly to estimate the amount and kinds 
of manual labour that must necessarily be done, and to 
train a sufficient number of children towards doing it, 
or at least scrupulously to avoid training the majority 
of children away from doing it ; and, secondly and con- 
junctively, to estimate the amount of brain work that 
it is necessary or desirable to get done, and to train a 
sufficient number of children of the best mental capaci- 
ties towards doing it. In this way we shall roughly 
ensure that the manual labour of the country will be 
mainly done by those who are physically best suited to 
do it, and also that the far more important brain work 
of the country will be mainly done by those who are 
mentally best suited to do it ; we shall preserve a steady 
balance between tlie different classes of workers, and get 
an approximately right apportionment of the various 
kinds of labour. When this balance and apportionment 



278 Patriotism and 

are upset, when eiglity-five square physical pegs are 
struggling to force thenisclves into fifteen round mental 
holes, the State is tending towards insecurity, confusion, 
and anarchy — as every day more plainly shows us, if we 
will open our eyes to facts, and cease to fondle our 
whimsies. 

Let us suppose a stretch of country whore coal and 
iron abound, and which, by an artificial an-angement 
of society, has been peopled almost exclusively by a deli- 
cate refined race of artists, scholars, and thinkers, the 
vast majority of whom are physically unfitted for rough 
manual labour. We can readily see that in the course 
of time, JSTature would remove such inhabitants, and 
would entirely change the breed of men in that district. 
Meanwhile, muscular labour, being very scarce, would be 
very highly paid, and would probably spend its money 
and leisure in coarse amusements suited to its tastes. 
The artists, and scholars, and thinkers, being largely 
superfluous, would be very badly paid ; would be more 
and more impoverished and discontented, and would 
tend to become inefi^ective and degenerate. Their con- 
dition would be only made the worse by educating the 
manual labourers to be artists and scholars and thinkers ; 
for, by the hypothesis, we have already too many of 
them for the natural resources of the country to support. 
Nor would the manual labourers themselves be much 
benefited by educating tliem all to be artists and scholars 
and thinkers; for it is their special function to sup- 
plant the superfluous artists and scholars and thinkers, 
and thus develop the natural resources of the country 
to the best advantage for the whole community. There 
would doubtless bo many of the manual labourers who 
would like to be artists and scholars and thinkers, and 
who would be naturally fitted for such vocations ; but so 



Popular Education 279 

far as tBey were indulged, the difficulties and inconven- 
iences of the whole population would only be aggravated, 
and the economic disorder increased. The equilibrium 
of the situation would only be restored when a sufficient 
number of the artists and scholars and thinkers had 
been starved out, or when the greater part of them had, 
after much suffering and discontent, adapted them- 
selves to manual labour. 

I have put an extreme case where the great majority 
of the population were horn with natural incapacities 
for the work that they were called upon to do. But for 
all practical purposes, it matters not whether men are 
horn with incapacities, or whether they are educated 
into them. The result is the same; a certain number 
of workers are disabled, or partially disabled, and do 
not perform the labour that is necessary to be done 
for the community, or do it grudgingly and imperfectly. 
And thus the country suffers a great ''economic injury," 
which I am afraid we must put to the debit of "gen- 
eral" education. 

How can we tell whether any considerable number 
of our population are being educated away from the par- 
ticular labour, or kind of labour that the general wel- 
fare of the State calls upon them to perform? Very 
clearly by the rates of pay which the various classes 
of labour receive for the work that they do. 

I am wholly of opinion that hard, disagreeable skilled 
work should be very highly paid ; indeed, I am of opin- 
ion that all useful work should be very highly paid. 
But unfortunately the rates of wages are not regulated 
by my opinion, or by the opinions of the workers them- 
selves. The rates of wages are regulated by severe eco- 
nomic laws, which cannot be broken without calling 
forth reactions very disagreeable to the workers. As 



280 Patriotism and 

soon as the Russian revolution was proclaimed, the gas 
workers of Odessa voted that their wages should be 
eighty pounds a month. The gas workers are now starv- 
ing and rioting in misery with the rest of the popula- 
tion ; Odessa is in darkness, perilously in need of some 
illumination in its streets and homes, more perilously in 
need of some illumination on the working of economic 
laws. 

The comparative rates of pay in various occupations 
give us a very fair rough measure of how far the popu- 
lation of a country has, in its different classes and ca- 
pacities, been wisely and suitably educated towards the 
performance of those labours and duties in which its 
members will be severally engaged, and by which they 
will have to earn their daily bread. Professor Wallace, 
at the end of his opening lecture ^ this season, gives 
some examples of the scale of wages received by cer- 
tain classes of manual and brain workers, 

I am sure you would agi-ee, sir, that no kind of 
ordinary, everyday brain work is more honourable, im- 
portant, and responsible than that of a School teacher ; 
requiring, as it does, not only a rather high and varied 
education, but also good manners, good habits, good con- 
duct, good taste, tact, patience, self-control, authority, 
sympathy, skill in handling children, and a personality 
that is not repellent to them. What occupation deserves 
more liberal pay, deserves something more than a living 
wage ? What would you consider to be a suitable salary 
for a school teacher in a town like Arbroath, with its 
22,700 inhabitants? The Arbroath School Board offer 
£80 a year to one who ought to possess all these accom- 
plishments, if the training of your scholars in that town 
is not to suffer in some respects. 
'Opening Lecture, p. 28 (Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh, 6c?). 



Popular Education 281 

Again, what manual work calls for less skill, or 
thought, or knowledge of any kind, calls for less care 
in habits, conduct, manners, dress, or character, than 
that of a scavenger — its one desirable, but not necessary 
qualification, being a diminished sensibility of the ol- 
factory nerves. What would you consider, sir, to be a 
suitable salary for an Arbroath scavenger, comparing 
his work and responsibilities with the work and respon- 
sibilities of an Arbroath school teacher ? The town pays 
its scavengers £101 18s. per annum, that is, over twen- 
ty-five per cent, more wages than it pays its school 
teachers. 

What treasure houses of social and economic infor- 
mation are these advertisement columns of newspapers ! 
Let us take another sample. 

The Bath City Council and Education Committee 
require an assistant in the School of Commerce and 
Languages. This, again, is a post which seems to de- 
mand that its occupant shall possess rather high and 
varied qualifications and accomplishments. He is of- 
fered £90 a year. Meantime the "Daily Chronicle" 
offers £208 a year (£4 a week), with permanent employ- 
ment and easy hours, to a ragpicker — a calling which, 
like scavenging, demands neither skill of hand or brain, 
nor any qualification of character or conduct. 

How excellent a thing is Education ! How far more 
excellent is plenty of good bread and cheese and beer I 

Is it not, sir, a grave reproach to your department 
that a debased and servile employment like ragpicking, 
should be paid more than two and a half times as highly 
as school teaching ? Doubtless, sir, you will consider it 
advisable to redress this grievance of your teachers, and 
to see they have no cause to envy the affluence of the 
happy ragpickers. 



282 Patriotism and 

It is clearly impossible to reduce the pay of the rag- 
pickers. They wouldn't like it ; and they all have votes. 
Wo must raise the pay of the teachers. To what figure 
shall we raise it ? If knowlcdg-e and educational attain- 
ments, good conduct and character, are not to be de- 
spised by our masses, and less esteemed than unintelli- 
gent ignorance and the meanest unskilled labour, we 
must raise our teachers' pay till at least it equals the pay 
of tlie ragpickers. You will not, I am sure, cast so great 
a slur upon educational accomplishments as to pay for 
them at a loss rate than is paid for ragpicking. And 
a thousand pities it is that such dignified, important, 
and skilled brain work as scliool teaching, does not au- 
tomatically command a far higher rate of wages than 
the commonest and vilest slopwork of the streets. How 
comes this about? Wo must inquire bow it is that our 
market prices for ragpicking and school teaching ai*e 
so disproportionately fixed. 

Meantime, sir, very respect for the great cause of 
Education itself, urges you to raise the financial status 
of our teaching staff to the financial status of ragpickers. 
If you would leave them without just and crying reason 
for complaints and strikes, you can scarcely do less tlian 
this. That is, you must artificially pay them two and 
a half times as much a^ they are worth in the labour 
marJcet. 

Will not that bo taking a step on a very dangerous 
road ? For it seems that all other classes of manual 
and brain labourers are also demanding higher wages — 
demanding wages that are regulated, not by the opera- 
tion of economic laws, but by their own estimate of 
what they are worth, or what they would like to get. 
And the same economic laws that, in the present rela- 
tive abundance of superficial intellectual accomplish- 



Popular Education 283 

ments, and the present relative scarcity of willing man- 
ual labour — the same economic laws that have already 
fixed the pay of ragpickers at more than two and a half 
times the pay of school teachers, will continue to work 
towards the same result, and will tend to raise the pay 
of ragpickers till it reaches a modest competence of £500 
per annum, while the teachers will be grumbling and 
languishing on a paltry £200. 

We are daily receiving the plainest evidence that the 
price of one article, or of one kind of labour, cannot 
be inflated without causing an inflation in the price3 
of other articles and other kinds of labour. Thus we 
continue to blow our roseate bubbles till they burst. 

When the gas workers of Odessa vote themselves 
eighty pounds a month wages, we plainly perceive that 
they are building an unsound social structure. And 
surely enough the social structure cracks, and falls in 
ruin in a few weeks. When, as in England to-day, we 
find that an occupation which calls for knowledge, in- 
telligence, educational attainments, good conduct, and 
some refinement of manner, dress, and habits — when we 
find that such an occupation is paid considerably less 
than half what is paid for vagabond, ignorant, unskilled 
labour which can be performed by anyone without the 
least education, can we not perceive that we also are 
building an unsound social structure ? 

How comes it that ragpicking is so inordinately paid, 
and is in such a state of careless, easy affluence, com- 
pared with school teaching? Plainly because we have 
been producing and training school teachers and rag- 
pickers in wrong proportions, having regard to the 
amounts and kinds of work necessary to be done. The 
wide diffusion of Popular Education has brought about 
SL relative abundance of superficial intellectual accom- 



284 Patriotism and 

plishments, and a relative scarcity of manual latour 
willing to perform the most ordinary everyday tasks. 

A certain irreducible amount of manual labour must 
be performed for every one of us that comes into the 
world. We must all be fed, clothed, shod, housed, and 
provided with many other necessaries of life, before we 
can be educated, or even be fit to receive education. 
Therefore I respectfully submit to you, sir, that these 
are the fundamental questions we have to ask: "How 
much, and what kinds of manual labour must neces- 
sarily be done for our forty millions of people? How 
can we first and best educate our masses to do this im- 
perative manual work carefully and thoroughly, and 
so far as may be, willingly and without incessant dis- 
turbance of the State, and dislocation of social life?" 
When we have answered these questions, when we have 
laid out an Educational scheme that shall first take ac- 
count of these first and urgent national necessities, and 
shall first provide for them, we can go on to ask, "How 
much general and advanced education can we give to 
all who are likely to profit by it, and to all who care to 
avail themselves of it ?" And we can then be very lib- 
eral in giving "general" education, as indeed every one 
would wish to be. 

For, all these considerations being duly weighed, and 
all these urgent national necessities being duly provided 
for, I will still cordially agree with you that "no coun- 
try in the long run suffers an economic injury from an 
improvement in the general education of its population." 
A soundly educated Englishman is wanted all the 
world over; a half-educated Englishman is wanted in 
very few countries; a mis-eduoated Englishman is 
wanted nowhere — certainly not in England. 

Again, we may remind ourselves that if this neces- 



Popular Education 285 

sary maimal work is not done, or is done imperfectly, 
it is the workers themselves who are the chief sufferers. 
And they will assuredly suffer far more grievously if 
they are stinted in the necessaries which manual la- 
bour provides for them, than if they are stinted in the 
items of information provided by "general" education. 
It is harder to go short of food than of a knowledge 
of Roman history; to nine out of ten of us, a sack 
of coal is worth more than a cartload of mathematics; 
and a pair of good stout boots on a working man's feet, 
are better than a hundred crudely conceived social 
problems in his head. We are about to receive some 
very rude enlightenment on the comparative value of 
all these commodities. 

In view of the present alarming economic situation, 
would you say, sir, that the vast numbers of our popu- 
lation who must necessarily be employed in manual 
labour, are receiving in our schools, a sound and suit- 
able training for their life's work? Would you not 
say that a large and increasing number of them are 
being educated away from it, in the hope of escaping 
from it, and in the certainty of being dissatisfied with 
it? How else do you account for the underpayment 
of school teachers and many other more or less skilled 
brain workers, in comparison with unskilled labourers ? 
How else do you account for the abundance of use- 
less, superficial, intellectual accomplishments, and the 
relative scarcity of willing manual labour? How else 
do you account for the tawdry shoddiness and staple 
ugliness of our urban life? How else do you account 
for the badness and inefficiency of so much of the work 
that is done for working men and working class homes ? 

Without Popular Education our carpenters and 
builders and labourers were concentrated upon their 



286 Patriotism and 

work, and knowing it thoroughly, and taking some 
pleasure and pride in it, they naturally and uncon- 
sciously spread a robe of beauty over our land. 

What else is it but this crude, superficial, universal 
mis-education that, absorbing our thoughts and dissi- 
pating our energies, makes so much of our labour un- 
profitable to the State ; and so much of our leisure mi- 
profitable to ourselves? What else is it but this same 
crude, superficial, universal mis-education that, flatter- 
ing the ignorance and inflaming the envies of the 
masses, to-day shakes every social structure in Europe, 
and threatens everywhere to put the wise under the do- 
minion of fools, the workers under the dominion of 
the talkers, the industrious under the dominion of the 
slothful, and the honest under the dominion of thieves; 
gives bounties to disease and weakness and laziness and 
ignorance, and lays burdens upon health and diligence 
and thrift and intelligence; discourages discipline and 
obedience, and exalts revolt and disorder; makes the 
servant the master, and the master the servant, and 
engages us all to turn the pyramid of society upside 
down, in the vain effort to make it stand upon its apex ? 

The effect of giving a disproportionate amount of 
compulsory superficial intellectual training to every- 
body, is to make it cheap and useless, alike to the ma- 
jority of its possessors and to the community, while it 
draws away a great number of manual workers at a 
time when we are sorely in need of their vigorous mus- 
cles and nimble fingers. Superficial intellectual at- 
tainments are the veriest drug in the market. This 
is shown by the fact that you can get school teachers 
at £80 a year. You will not get them with the many 
qualifications and abilities which I have enumerated 
as necessary and desirable for this most important 



Popular Education 287 

work. Their average mental capacities and acquire- 
ments are indicated by the salary they will take, which 
is less than that of a tolerable typist, and of many other 
competitors in the less skilled kinds of brain work. We 
have here a means of gauging the general quality of 
the instruction and training that is being given to our 
millions of scholars. And when you require teachers 
with higher mental qualifications for your continuation 
classes, they are not to be found, and you have to pro- 
vide fresh educational machinery for training them. 
That is, you have to call a further conscription of avail- 
able manual labour, at the same time making it more 
scarce, inept, and discontented. 

All these consequences and complications are only 
what we might have expected. For generations past, 
Nature has been busily fitting out the vast numbers of 
English children with physical and mental qualifica- 
tions in rough approximation to the amounts of man- 
ual and brain work necessary to be done in the country. 
Her process has been that which I described in the 
imaginary coal and iron district, peopled exclusively 
with scholars and artists and thinkers. She has elimi- 
nated all those who were unfitted to the kinds of la- 
bour that necessarily had to be performed in that dis- 
trict, so that its resources might be developed to the 
general advantage. 

The infinite multiplication of machines does not call 
for a higher average of mental and intellectual abili- 
ties. On the contrary, it calls for a diminished exer- 
cise of the brains, and for a greater number of workers 
with inferior mental capacities. It demands far less 
intelligence to tend a machine than to thatch a house, 
or shepherd a flock, or till a garden, or make a piece 
of hand lace. 



288 Patriotism and 

' Now ITature, being always busy at tbis process of 
elimination and adaptation, has probably sorted out 
your scholars for you in something approaching the 
right proportions. She has probably supplied you with 
something like fifteen per cent, of boys and girls whose 
brains are worth cultivating to their utmost capacity, 
and who will repay the State for all the education you 
can give them. She has probably supplied you with 
something like eighty-five per cent, of boys and girla 
with brains of lower and varying capacities, who should 
be educated according to these lower and varying ca- 
pacities, and to do the work most urgently required by 
the State. Some of them with quite ordinary, or only 
second-rate, brains will be found to have some special 
gift, as for the stage, or for music, or for painting. 
These should be set apart for special training; many 
of them need not much more than to be left alone, 
for they will eagerly pursue and cultivate their natural 
gift. But all such boys and girls should be given the 
greatest chance to develop their one talent at the earliest 
age; for it is by removing all difiiculties from their 
paths, and by fostering their special gifts to the best 
fulfilment — it is by such means, sir, that you will pro- 
vide our common people with civilizing and satisfying 
pleasures, and educate them in the wise enjoyment of 
their leisure. 

I will remind you, sir, that some months ago, you 
refused permission for children to play in five of 
Shakespeare's most popular plays. I will say again, 
very plainly, that you were then not only defeating 
the best educational training for some of the children 
in the work for which they were most fitted, but that 
you were also tending to defeat the best educational 



Popular Education 289 

training and wisest amusement for the masses of the 
adult population. 

These children I have glanced at are, however, a very 
small minority of the many millions that come under 
your jurisdiction. In view, however, of the great 
value to the community of their special gifts, it is im- 
portant that these children should be carefully selected 
and segregated, and that their Education should be 
specialized, and directed to the main end of cultivating 
their natural gifts. 

The vast majority of the remaining many millions 
will necessarily be employed in manual labour, or in 
those unintellectual occupations where literary and edu- 
cational accomplishments will be of no possible service 
to them, but will rather make them indisposed towai'ds 
their work, and incapable of performing it with care 
and diligence. Having regard to the immense amount 
of skilled manual labour which is loudly crying out 
for muscles and hands in all parts of our Empire, what 
better service could you render to the State, and to 
these future workers, than to train as many of them 
as possible, and as early as possible, towards the prac- 
tice of their future callings, so far as these can be 
taught at school ; to abstain from educating the remain- 
der of them away from their future callings; and, so 
far as manual labour is concerned, to set them all free 
to pursue it, in the measure that it will not injure 
average healthy children. 

I think I see millions of willing little arms stretched 
out to you from all parts of the kingdom, beseeching 
you, "Give us something to do ! Give us something to 
make, that we may early begin to take a pride in the 
work of our hands, and may not be ashamed of it! 



290 Patriotism and 

Educate us chiefly in what it most concerns ns to do, 
and cease trying to cram a quart of useless knowledge 
into our poor bewildered little pint-pot brains !" 

That million, or thereabouts, of working-class homes 
that have to be built — why should not healthy working- 
class children be allowed to lend a hand in building 
them in their holiday time, provided only that care is 
taken that they are not overworked ? And why should 
they not be paid for such a service to the working 
classes ? The houses are urgently needed ; the labourers 
are few; there are thousands of our elder children 
whose leisure hours would be far better employed in 
jobs of rough carpentry and masonry than in idling 
about the streets, and whose physical and moral health 
would gain rather than suffer by such employment. 
At the same time, these children would be given a 
direct and practical interest in solving what is, and will 
remain, one of the most pressing problems of our mod- 
ern civilization — "How shall we house our workers in 
health and comfort and reasonable content, and add 
some daily beauty to their lives ?' How shall we make 
their dwellings wholesome and convenient to them, 
and pleasant to look upon, so that the outskirts of our 
towns may cause us to rejoice, and not to shudder, as 
we approach them?" 

I suppose, sir, you will allow that to befone of the 
most pressing problems of our internal economy ? That 
problem is not to be solved by "general" education; 
it is only to be solved by work — ^work that is special- 
ized and trained to that end. "General" education will 
indeed make the evil more perceptible, but it will not 
cure it. It will merely tend to cause more discontent. 

You have probably in your elementary schools, an 
overwhelming amount of healthy young muscular hu- 



Popular Education 291 

man material that could be trained to accomplish a 
great part of this most urgent national work. Why not 
select a large corps of your little scholars who are physi- 
cally suited, give them a special training, and set them 
free at the age of twelve or fourteen to work for some 
six hours a day at the noble task of building service- 
able and pleasing future homes for themselves and 
their brothers ? By some such plan, carefully organized 
in all details, much of the dreary ugliness and disorder 
that sprawl over England, might be removed in the 
course of a generation; our streets of working-class 
homes, instead of straggling and huddling in long, 
bleak, .drab, repulsive miles and acres of hideous blocks 
and alleys, might be transformed into ways and shapes 
of pleasantness, and throw their homely modest charm 
over the cleansed and redeemed countryside. 

Again, the work could probably be made more at- 
tractive to the boys themselves than the "general" edu- 
cation which you are forcing upon them. Sir, this 
great national work is crying out to be done, and not 
one pair of hands, not one ounce of hard young muscle 
that might be put to it, can be diverted to useless "gen- 
eral" education, without an "economic injury" to the 
country. Children love to build houses; it is one of 
their earliest, strongest instincts. How this instinct 
has been thwarted and suppressed and perverted by 
Popular Education, may be seen by taking a walk in 
almost any town in the kingdom, and by observing the 
average style and design of the houses that are being 
built. Why should not this universal instinct and de- 
light of childhood to build houses, be seized upon and 
guided towards this great result of national comfort 
and comeliness? The instinct is there, in the vast ma- 
jority of your little scholars, waiting to be educated, 



292 Patriotism and 

and inspired to do most fruitful handiwork. For it 
is useless that these working-class homes shall be well 
designed, if their actual builders are not inspired by a 
live faithful interest in what they are doing, if they 
do it carelessly and perfunctorily, with wandering 
brains, and untrained eyes and hands. 

I entreat you, sir, to consider whether some such 
scheme as I am here advocating, could not be carried 
out with great educational advantage to the boys them- 
selves, and with a certainty of bringing many direct 
and indirect benefits to the nation. Of what avail is it 
that you pour your copious showers of "general educa- 
tion" upon our masses, when every walk they take in 
the streets of our large towns is in itself, a "general 
education" in banal mechanical habits of thought and 
living, and an encouragement to spend their money 
and leisure in tawdry amusements, empty literature, 
and foolish delights? 

I am sure you are equally desirous with myself that 
these million of homes for our workers should be built 
with dispatch, and finished within a reasonably early 
time; that when they are built, they should not appear 
as great thick slabs of dull, dead monumental mean- 
ness and monotony, laid flat upon English landscapes, 
or as swarms of perky, pretentious, bragging little 
jerry villa "residences"; but that they should have 
character, individuality, solidity, restfulness, and a 
varied simplicity: that they should give evidence that 
we have some sense of national architecture, and some 
craving for national beauty; that they should offer 
cheerfulness and comfort and every household conven- 
ience to their inmates, and a pleasing spectacle to those 
who view them from very near or from afar off. 

I am sure all these consummations will seem desir- 



Popular Education 293 

able to you. And there are hundreds of thousands of 
your little scholars whose natural instinct and love of 
housebuilding, could be played upon and educated to- 
wards the attainment of these ends. Will you not re- 
mit something of your stern resolve to fill their heads 
with information about Cicero and Miss Corelli, and 
other such lofty recondite matter, and educate a suffi- 
cient number of them, from a quite early age towards 
the very fine art of putting bricks and mortar and bits 
of timber into pleasing shapes, and useful dwelling- 
places for them to inhabit when they shall become fa- 
thers and householders ? 

I have repeated and re-repeated all these arguments 
and illustrations ad nauseam; I have dwelt upon them 
with most irritating and wearisome reiteration, for 
which I have no excuse, except my conviction that you 
will not pay the least attention to what I am saying, 
and that therefore I am not making any demand upon 
your time and patience. But indeed I know of no other 
way of gaining some lodgment for truth in men's 
minds, but that of affirming it again and again, in the 
hope of rousing them at last, and delivering them from 
the stupors and catalepsies of fijxed popular opinions 
and false beliefs. 

It is no idle question I am raising, but one that deep- 
ly concerns the permanent welfare of the nation. The 
scattered patches and threats of coming social disaster, 
that were no larger than a man's hand when I began 
this letter, have gathered into great storm-clouds, and 
ai'e spreading upwards all over our sky. Even those 
of us who have good reason for our strong faith in, 
the sound instincts and commonsense of our working 
classes, are often constrained to ask ourselves, "How 
shall we avoid a social and economic deluge, a general 



294 Patriotism and 

wreckage of the State ?" "Not by continued strikes and 
agitation, not by raising wages, not by shortening hours 
of work, but only by setting all our hands and muscles 
and brains to mioke those things which are necessary 
and useful to us all. Only in this way can comfort 
and plenty and leisure be secured for our working 
classes. The rate of pay is of quite secondary import- 
ance. We are daily seeing that the mere raising of 
wages only makes everything dearer and scarcer for 
everybody, and tends to shatter the whole social ma- 
chine, as when the gas workers of Odessa voted them- 
selves eighty pounds a month. 

If the great body of the working classes in any com- 
munity are doing and making necessary, useful, and 
beautiful things in right proportions, that community 
will be rich and comfortable and contented, whatever 
the rates of wages may be, whether a shilling a day or 
a pound. If they are not doing and making necessary 
and useful and beautiful things, that community will 
be poor and miserable and discontented, though every 
man in it was paid fifty pounds a day. 

Again, if the great body of the working classes are 
doing and making necessary and useful and beautiful 
things, that community will have a corresponding 
amount of happy leisure. The amount of available 
leisure in a community is in direct and exact proportion 
to the amount of necessary and useful work done in it. 
Leisure is the payment of work. So much wholesome 
work done, so much wholesome play gained. My work 
provides another man with leisure and play; his work 
provides me with leisure and play. 

I am speaking now of necessary, useful, wholesome, 
and beautiful work. A great part of the work that 
many of us are doing is neither necessary, useful, 



Popular Education 295 

wholesome, nor beautiful, and is done for people who 
also are doing work that is neither necessary, useful, 
wholesome, nor beautiful. Trace the amount of "eco- 
nomic injury" of that spectacle of imbecile tomfoolery 
which in the first year of the war was advertised to cost 
£15,000. Trace its success with the public to the false 
and superficial education they had received. Trace 
the growth and flourishing spread of all these fungus 
parasitic occupations to the same cause, to a system 
of Popular Education which teaches the people what 
they are only remotely concerned to know, before it 
teaches them what they are imperatively concerned to 
do and make; indeed, in many cases, is guiding them 
away from what they should make and do, is forbidding 
them any early practice of it, and is complacently boast- 
ing of the mischief it is doing its victims and to the 
community. 

If we probe more deeply still, we can trace the in- 
stability of our social system to the general absence of 
any living credible religion amongst us; to the absence 
of an active working faith that the universe to its most 
ultimate atom, is mathematically set to force us towards 
right conduct, towards exact truthfulness and honesty 
with each other in all our dealings; that towards these 
issues, we are being relentlessly driven by the Eternal, 
by warnings, by checks, by disasters, and finally, if 
we will pay no heed, by world-revolutions and catasr 
trophes. A social structure is sound in exact proportion 
to the amount of honesty amongst its inhabitants. 

But any remarks and inquiries on this subject may 
be more fittingly offered, when occasion shall serve, to 
the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Reverend Dr. 
Clifford. I am inclined to think that, if a dozen years 
of Puritanism could be enforced upon this nation, it 



296 Patriotism and 

would be a salutary punisliment for its general lack 
of sincere, operative, religious belief, and its contempt 
for the Power that infects the world. 

I began this letter by saying that I had no hope of 
persuading you to change the main features and drift 
of the Education Bill that you were then passing, but 
that my suggestions were offered for your considera- 
tion when the time should come for moulding your next 
measure. I have, therefore, counted you among my 
non-readers, or, at least, among my non-regarders, so 
far as what I have written relates to the Act that you 
are now about to administer. I am loth, however, to 
think that I have written in vain, and I continue to 
nurse my illusion that I may be of some service to you 
when you frame your next Education Bill. I am sure 
you will agree with me, that what I have said may be 
more opportunely considerd in connexion with a future 
Education Act, than with the present one. And if, 
as a compliment to you as a scholar, I may draw upon 
my scanty store of classical knowledge for a motto 
suitable to that future Education Act, I would sug- 
gest, "Ad vivendum volut ad natandum is melior onere 
liberior." I think Apuleius must have had your mil- 
lions of little scholars in his mind, seeing how strong 
a tide of hard necessity and adverse economic forces 
they will have to swim against in the next generation; 
seeing also that, however that tide may turn in their 
favour, they will assuredly make all the easier head- 
way and advance, the less they are burdened with use- 
less supei-ficial knowledge, and the less they are drawn 
away from the main business of their lives, and their 
useful service to the community. 

Meantime, sir, you have behind you the full force 
and backing of popular and political approval. I will 



Popular Education 297 

therefore await, and will cheerfully submit to, the 
final arbitrament of facts, being always ready to change 
my opinions, at their earliest dictation. This gives 
me a pleasant feeling of superiority to the majority of 
my fellows, for I observe that most men are quite un- 
able to change their opinions till long after their fal- 
lacy and absurdity has been proved by facts. The lat- 
est fact, declared in staring headlines in this evening's 
papers, is that 200,000 miners have struck at a moment 
when the nation is perilously in need of coal, and that 
two or three millions of workers are affected. They 
seem to be holding "continuation classes" of their own 
— in interstellar finance and economics. 

Perhaps ITature is going to bring in a rude, long 
overdue TJneducation Bill of her ovtu, with all sorts of 
arbitrary, penal clauses. Perhaps the Old Hussy, hav- 
ing been busy for some three centuries in showing us 
the evils and horrors of irresponsible Autocracy, is now 
preparing to show us the evils and horrors of irre- 
sponsible Democracy. Por it is by means of these 
balancing alternations and reactions that She gov- 
erns us; pitchforking us first upon one horn of a di- 
lemma and then upon the other; correcting our fond 
notions of self-determination, until at last She gets 
us to go the way she would have us go, which is often 
not at all the way we want to go — witness the forecasts 
and declared aims of all the statesmen and political 
thinkers of all the countries during the last ten years. 



CHAPTER VII 

{Jan. 1919) 

summing-tj? on populae education in oub 
Theatees. 

A matter of national concern — A mis-educated public — ^Vulgari- 
zation of our national life by indiscriminate Popular Education 
— Our masses badly trained, alike for useful productive work and 
for wise amusement — A correct "attitude of mind" towards "the 
facts of life" — A correct attitude of body even more desirable — 
"Attitude of mind" of our popular audiences — Pressing invita- 
tion to Minister of Education to become a playgoer — "Who has 
been mis-educating these dear, good folk?" 

I COULD have been content to rest my indictment of 
our present system of Popular Education upon the 
condition of our theatres alone. This may appear to 
be a matter of small account in the great sum of our 
national life. Seemingly it is a matter of utter indif- 
ference, alike to our men of letters, to the great body 
of average intelligent Englishmen, and to the millions of 
unthinking playgoers themselves. It is, however, a 
matter of some importance to us who are striving, 
against insurmountable difficulties, to give England 
a school of modern drama and comedy worthy of a 
great nation; and alongside it a school of trained, in- 
telligent, dignified Shakespearean acting in the popu- 
lar theatres of London and our great cities. 

It is not so small a matter as it appears. It is not 
a matter to be tossed aside with careless contempt, that 

298 



Popular Education 299 

our masses are wasting the greater part of their evening 
leisure at entertainments that, with the rarest excep- 
tions, may be described as rosy twaddle, amiable falsi- 
ties, crude sensation, and, most popular of all, gaudy 
exhibitions of undisguised licentiousness and empty 
imbecile tomfoolery, produced with the Lord Chamber- 
lain's authority and passport. 

I will not raise any standards of super-morality or 
super-intellectualism. I will not lay upon average im- 
perfect human nature, burdens too grevious to be 
borne. Least of all, will I offensively claim to be better 
or wiser than my neighbours. I have always humbly 
endeavoured to follow the sage counsel of Ecclesiastes: 
"Be not righteous overmuch ; neither make thyself over- 
wise; why shouldst thou destroy thyself?" I take 
some satisfaction in remembering that I have scrup- 
ulously and consistently obeyed these two golden rules 
of the Preacher. 

Waiving the question of whether the condition of 
our theatres can be safely neglected by our politicians 
and social reformers; granted that many of the abuses 
and futilities that I have glanced at, are unavoidable; 
granted, with all my heart, that a supply of good tom- 
foolery, in its subordinate place and reasonable pro- 
portion, is desirable, and even necessary, to ease and 
cheer our people — putting aside these aspects of the 
matter for the moment, what would you say, sir, of 
the staple of our theatrical amusements as a gauge and 
indicator of the level of Popular Education, and of the 
shape and direction it is giving to the tastes and pleas- 
ures of our masses ? 

Perhaps in the months that have passed since I sent 
you the earlier parts of this letter, you have conquered 
the natural repugnance which most intelligent English- 



300 Patriotism and 

men feol against entering the theatres of tlieir native 
land, or rather of entering them in an intelligent frame 
of mind; pcrlmps you have tasted of the dainty dishes 
that the bulk of our theatre-goers most relish in our 
most popular theatres, and have formed your own 
judfiiuent upon tliem. 

Would you call it, sir, a well-educated public, that 
for the past twenty years has further and further ban- 
ished Shakespeare from our stage, and driven him to 
odd holes and corners; that regards him as a bore and 
an affliction ; that for the most part cannot even un- 
derstand his lines, or recognize and comprehend his 
characters, nuich less enjoy his humour and wisdom 
and philosophy of life; that for the past twenty years 
has also increasingly rejected all modern plays that 
deal thoughtfully and searchingly with our modern life, 
whether in comedy or drama ; that coughs and fidgets at 
any scene or character that demands a moment's exer- 
cise of thought; that rocks with imbecile laughter at 
senseless topical catchwords and scarcely-veiled obscen- 
ity; that revels in the gradual corruption of the Eng^ 
lish language; that has exalted the gagging, blatant, 
cmpty-pated comedian and pretty doll chorus girl to 
the empty chairs of Kean, Macready, Irving, and Sid- 
dons; that takes its chief evening delight in mafficking 
at gaudy, costly, mindless spectacles, whose very titles 
stink with witless vulgarity? 

Would you call it in any sense an educated public? 
Would you say that it is in tlie way to become an 
educated public? Would you not call it a badly mis- 
educated public? If you were a foreign visitor, benev- 
olently dis])osod towards England — say from France, 
where the modern drama is a recognized part of the 
national literature, where the dramatist is esteemed 



Popular Education 301 

according to his rank as a man of letters — would you 
not join me, sir, in urging our Minister of Educa- 
tion to tako cognizance of this national diHgrace, and 
to place it in relation to his whole system of popular 
instruction ? 

May T again remind you, sir, that this condition of 
our English stage has developed with the increasing 
spread of Popular Education, and socms likely to de- 
velop still further on the same lines, according to tho 
increasing amount of "general" education that our 
masses receive from your hands ? 

N'o man could ho more desirous than myself that our 
workers should have shortcsr liours and more ahundant 
leisure. They do not wish it for themselves more than 
I wish it for ihcm. But surely increased leisure is a 
douhtful hoon if it is unwisely spent. If our masses are 
incapahlo of spending their leisure wisely, it is un- 
kindncss to them and a very palpahlo "economic in- 
jury" to tho country, to give them further opportuni- 
ties of wasting their time. 

I will not helieve it. I prefer to think that they are 
being badly educated, alike for tho useful productive 
work that alone can give them shorter hours, and for 
tho wise amusement that alone can justify them in de- 
manding more time for play. 

I do not decry Popular Education in itself. I have 
gladly acknowledged that in many ways, it has raised, 
and enlarged, and cleansed tho lives of our lower classes. 
Every system of Popular Education must necessarily 
have the defects of its qualities, and a reverse side to 
its virtues. But our present system by its want of 
discrimination and specialization; by its blind worship 
of advanced "general" education for every child, irre- 
spective of his capacity to receive it, or to profit by it; 



302 Patriotism and 

its neglect to train hands and muscles for their proper 
work, and brains for their proper work; its fatuous 
discouragement of manual labour for healthy boys and 
girls, to their own life-long injury, and the injury of 
the State; its curious conceit that by tying children's 
hands behind their backs it quickens their mental activi- 
ties, and that by depositing heaps of miscellaneous 
knowledge in their brains, it swells their cerebral 
hemispheres, and deepens the convolutions in the cor- 
tex; its vulgarization of our whole national life by 
spreading a dead level of spurious and superficial ac- 
complishments — it is by the operation of these mis- 
chievous whimsies, that our present system of Popular 
Education has, after two generations, trained nearly 
every worker in the kingdom into active and ceaseless 
discontent with his work, and has stored a powder 
magazine under the foundations of civilization and 
order. 

You are reported, sir, to say that the cure for all this 
unrest "is an attitude of mind, and an increased ca- 
pacity for coming to a judicial and judicious decision 
upon the facts of life." Everybody will cordially as- 
sent that a changed attitude of mind is urgently needed. 
But how that is to be brought about by increased "gen- 
eral" education from discontented, half-educated, mis- 
educated teachers, I see not. However, we shall watch 
the effect of your prescription with earnest prayers 
that it may prove remedial, and that we shall witness 
a sudden and startling adoption of this most desirable 
"attitude of mind" and a consequent "increased capac- 
ity for coming to a judicial and judicious decision upon 
the facts of life." 

The one prominent "fact of life" that everywhere 
stares us in the face, is that there is a tremendous 



Popular Education 303 

amount of hard, dirty, disagreeable manual work to 
be done in every house, in every street, in every field 
in England, l^ot a single one of us can be at our ease, 
until that work is tackled and accomplished. On re- 
newed consideration of the whole problem, would you 
not say, sir, that what is required is not so much an 
attitude of mdnd towards all this necessary manual la- 
bour, as an attitude of body? 

I do not perceive much likelihood of our masses 
coming to a judicious and judicial decision upon this 
all-important and most pressing "fact of life." All 
the present indications are that they are every day com- 
ing to more and more injudicious and injudicial de- 
cisions upon it. Might we not now, with your permis- 
sion, cease to contemplate all this accumulating mass 
of necessary work from lofty attitudes and altitudes of 
mind, and putting our bodies into correct postures, 
strip off our coats, and tuck up our shirt-sleeves, and do 
it with all our might ? For assuredly, unless this work 
is done, and done quickly, we shall presently have to 
call in the soldier — which is what we all wish to avoid. 

Meantime, sir, if you wish to get a trustworthy es- 
timate of the general disposition of our public to take 
up a correct attitude of mind towards the facts of life, 
and to weigh them judiciously and judically, I again 
beg you to pay a round of visits to our most popular 
theatres. Most heartily do I sympathize with you in 
your efforts to get our populace to take up this cor- 
rect "attitude of mind" towards the facts of life. For 
thirty-five years, I also, have been fitfully and despair- 
ingly persuading our public to adopt this "attitude of 
mind" in the theatre. You will guess, then, with what 
interest I am watching your experiments on the larger 
stage of our national life. Like you, I had an ingen- 



304 Patriotism and 

nous faith that the spread of Popular Education would 
automatically train our masses into this salutary rela- 
tionship to the facts of lifa 

Certainly our theory is right. I will admit no 
doubts of its soundness. After all the time and trouble 
and money we have spent upon Popular Education, the 
least it can do is to confirm our theory by results. 
Clearly, it must be the facts of life that are wrong. We 
must adjust and dispose them in a proper and respect- 
ful attitude towards our theories. The root of the 
mischief is that our present system of Popular Edu- 
cation tends largely to divert our masses from facts, 
especially from all unpleasant facts. The primary fact 
of all facts, discovered at a very early period in the 
history of our race, is the very plain one: "In the 
sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." I see it mak- 
ing disrespectful grimaces at your continuation classes. 

However, I hope that in consideration for one, who 
in the small and limited sphere of the theatre, is, like 
yourself, trying to place the public in a correct atti- 
tude of mind towards facts, and also as affording you 
valuable evidence of the effect of Popular Education on 
the masses — for these reasons, I hope, you may be in- 
duced at some personal inconvenience, to visit our huge 
popular theatres, and judge for yourself. You will 
find many things that you can approve and enjoy — if 
you divest yourself of every attitude and attribute of 
mind. You will find a good-natured, decently behaved 
public, with much broad, kindly, English humour, and 
a hearty appreciation of such jests as do not contain any 
approach to wit. But an educated -p^ihlicl Educated?! 
If you were that benevolent foreigner, and were taken 
to a round of the popular evening entertainments most 
frequented by the masses of our large towns, you would 



Popular Education 305 

surely exclaim: "Where have these people been to 
school ? Who has been mis-educating these dear good 
folk down to this shocking level of dull vulgarity, empty 
folly, and bad taste?" 

If after paying such a round of visits, and after 
watching those items of the evening's programme which 
are most relished by those who have been taught in our 
national schools at the expense of the State — if you will 
then declare that you are satisfied with the results and 
tendencies of our system of Popular Education, as a 
preparation for the duties of life, and for the wise en- 
joyment of leisure, I will wholly submit myself to 
your judgment, and will confess that I do not under- 
stand what Education is. It is a word in some foreign 
language that has no meaning for me. 

Summing-up on a League of Nations 

It is discouraging to find that the millennium is 
again postponed. However, we are to have a welcome 
first instalment of it in the League of ISTations. The 
Peace Conference, with a true instinct for essentials, 
gave it the first consideration, deeming that if we could 
only frame a League of Illations, the finishing of the 
war was a quite secondary and negligible matter. 

It is true that a solid world peace seems to be in- 
definitely postponed. But we have a League of Na- 
tions. It is true that while we have been talking, Ger- 
many has been manoeuvring to avoid the consequences 
of her defeat. But we have put our signatures to a 
League of Nations. It is true that all Europe is smoul- 
dering with revolution and the sparks of future wars. 
But we have framed a League of Nations. It is true 
that our sea supremacy is threatened and perhaps lost. 



306 Patriotism and 

But what need will there be for a Britisli navy now 
we have a League of Nations? 

It is distressing to find that there have been some 
quibbling and friction about the constitution and scope 
of the League of Nations. But the scheme has the 
warm support of my Aunt Julia, whose husband was 
eaten by cannibals, and who therefore speaks with in- 
side knowledge of the subject. Those objectors who 
have remained deaf to President Wilson's powerful ar- 
guments would, I feel sure, be convinced by my Aunt 
Julia. She very pertinently asks, why a League of 
Nations was not established in the very dawn of his- 
tory, and then there would have been no wars at all. 
She is lending the movement all the weight of her moral 
influence, and all the vigour of her tongue. If any fur- 
ther doubts or dissensions should arise, I hope the as- 
sembled statesmen may be persuaded to call my Aunt 
Julia to their councils. Her voluble optimism ad- 
mirably qualifies her to deal with the question. 

It will gratify President Wilson to know that what- 
ever difficulties or disasters the League of Nations may 
have to encounter, he can always be assured of the 
active sympathy and co-operation of my Aunt Julia. 
From the time when the question was first bruited, 
she has been enthusiastically in its favour. So much 
so, that she has declared throughout, if we could only 
get a League of Nations, she did not care what its 
conditions might be, or what nations came into it, or 
whether it would work or not. The main thing was 
to draw up some document, call it a League of Nations, 
and then defy any nation to go to war. I mention this 
to show how whole-heartedly she has supported Presi- 
dent Wilson. 

I have been so much impressed by Aunt Julia's ar- 



Popular Education 307 

guments, that I have commissioned one of our leading 
artists to paint a gi'eat allegorical picture, representing 
President Wilson's triumphant return from the Paris 
Conference, mounted on equum asinum with blinkers 
over its eyes and ears. Aunt Julia riding pillion bo- 
hind him, her one arm tightly clasping him to signify 
universal brotherhood, her other arm waving a white 
flag. When this noble piece of symbolism is enshrined, 
as I confidently hope it will be, in the Capitol at Wash- 
ington or the Boston Museum, it will commemorate, in 
a vivid and appropriate way, the founding of the 
League of ISTations. It will also remain as a rebuke 
to those Americans who are telling President Wilson, 
that it was more important to secure a just and early 
peace, than to waste the precious weeks in arranging 
the future of the planet on paper. 

In the meantime we have a League of Illations. The 
first thing that strikes us, is that it isn't a League of 
^Nations at all. It is a very complicated alliance be- 
tween the Allied powers, leaving all the real and per- 
manent difficulties of the main question unsolved, and 
opening up many new provocative questions for fu- 
ture settlement. However, the League of Nations is an 
accomplished fact, or rather an accomplished form of 
words, which, we hope, may control facts and events, 
and shape them to its ends. We have marshalled a 
formidable array of arguments in favour of governing 
the world by a Committee. All that events and facts 
have to do, is to marshal themselves to suit our views. 
The onus lies upon them. 

The future peace of the world rests upon the great 
solid arch which this war has built across the Atlan- 
tic, a good understanding between America and Britain. 
While that ai'ch remains, with beloved France to sup- 



308 Patriotism and 

port it, the peace of tlie world is assured, so far as it 
exists between nations. The League of ISTations will 
he successful if, and as long as, that arch is unshaken. 
If that arch should crack, we may have to change our 
title to "A League for setting the Nations at Logger- 
heads." 

The Last Appeal 

The vast web of our national life is woven all of 
one piece. Tattered and torn as it is in places, com- 
posed of divers ill-assorted warps and wefts, and many 
coloured threads that hold loosely together, it is yet one 
indivisible tissue and fabric. We are all members one 
of another, whether we will it or not. The destiny of 
each one of us is inseparable from the destiny of the 
British Empire. The destiny of the British Empire is 
the destiny of all the citizens within its bounds. We 
clearly perceived this during the war, and therefore 
we gained the victory. 

Straggling and unmethodical as these thoughts may 
seem to be, they are all connected and gathered up in 
one issue — Patriotism or Internationalism? Either 
by our own considered decison, looking before and 
after, and choosing our way, or, carried along in help- 
less, purposeless confusion by the drift and hustle of 
events, we shall find ourselves obliged to take one road 
or the other. As our course is steered towards Pa- 
triotism or towards Internationalism, so will all our in- 
ternal and external policy be conceived, shaped, and 
executed; so will all our national aims and activities 
be clarified, unified, and polarized. 

Education, Reconstruction, Army and Navy Organi- 
zation, Financial and Economic order and stability, Ag- 



Popular Education 309 

ricultural Development, the Govemment of Ireland, 
Our future rule in India, Colonial expansion, Com- 
mercial Tariffs, Mercantile Shipping and Overseas 
Trade — all these and a hundred other national pro- 
jects cannot be planned on any secure and permanent 
basis, until v^e have made up our mind whether we will 
take the road of Patriotism or of Internationalism. 

Chief of all, this is a question that concerns Capital 
and Labour. How can any durable relations be estab- 
lished between them, what can there be but increasing 
tumult and strife, till we know whether we are travel- 
ling towards the one goal, or towards the other? For 
as we make our way towards Patriotism or towards 
Internationalism, so will every interest of Capital and 
Labour in the kingdom be affected, regTilated, and dis- 
posed. The question of Capital and Labour is funda- 
mentally the question of Patriotism or International- 
ism. All these questions are one question. They throw 
their roots into the farthest corners of our empire, and 
gather themselves up into the one stem and trunk of 
our national life. 

IvTot on that August day four years and a half ago, 
when we took our swift unfaltering choice, flung all we 
had into the balance, and dared Eternal Justice to tilt 
the scales against us — not then were we more remorse- 
lessly challenged to make an irrevocable decision upon 
which all our future will depend. 

If the experience of these gi-eat events does not draw 
us all together in closer brotherhood, in unity of clear, 
national vision and unity of national effort, then we 
have fought and suffered in vain. We might almost as 
well have lost the war. For what shall we have gained 
by escaping the ordered tyranny and slavery of Ger- 



310 Patriotism and 

man militarism, if we are now to "be submitted to the 
disordered tyranny and raving misrule of social anar- 
chy ? 

There stand the two signposts, the one pointing us to 
Patriotism, the other to Internationalism. Let us make 
our steadfast deliberate choice, or inevitably it will be 
made for us by the irresistible rush of events. 

Whose voices are these that hail us from far and 
near ; from ages long gone by, and from our yesterdays 
of supernal endurance and valour in France; from 
every spot on earth's circumference where Englishmen 
have adventured, and suffered, and fought, and con- 
quered, and ruled for England ; from every grave in the 
deep, or in sacred shrines, or in foreign dust where 
deathless Englishmen are laid, and, being dead, do yet 
speak to us with most authentic and commanding 
tongues ? 

These are they, who from the dim horizons of our 
past, through all our stormy and glorious centuries, on 
battlefields, on the quarter-deck, in council and senate 
and on the throne, in cloisters of learning and philoso- 
phy, in the halls of justice, in the laboratories of science, 
in the workshops and furnaces of sweated thought, in 
the chambers of imagination and the galleries of song — 
these are the statesmen and rulers, and warriors, and 
seamen, and poets, and thinkers, and explorers, and in- 
ventors, and merchants, who have created this empire, 
and stone by stone, and story by story, have built up 
and filled with riches and treasures this home of our 
race, this clustering citadel, this refuge for humanity, 
this sanctuary of ordered government. 

These are your true leaders, O people of England, if 
you will but follow them ! These are your faithful 
teachers, if you will but learn from them! These are 



Popular Education 311 

your wise counsellors, if you will but g;ive heed to 
them! These are your lawful rulers who shall lead 
you back to peace and security and wide prosperity, if 
you will but obey them ! ITever has any nation in the 
past mustered such a company of her sons to span the 
world with the greatness and worth of her achieve- 
ments, and to civilize and enlarge the peoples by the 
benignity of her sway. !N^or will any nation arise in 
the future to pour from her womb, a kindred breed 
of famous men to claim for their land so sure and 
proud a title to enduring admiration and renown, and 
the praise and honour of mankind. 

This innumerable cloud of witnesses visit and sur- 
round us, rehearsing their deeds, counting over the sum 
of their labours and sacrifices for us, and charging our 
memories with the magnitude of the price they have 
paid for our ransom from servitude and barbarism. 
They meet us in council this day, and here assembled 
with us under these two opposing signposts, do now 
call upon us to say which road we will take — Patriot- 
ism or Internationalism? 

!Name them over, one by one, the long marvellous roll 
of our imperishable dead. What one is there amongst 
them whom Englishmen and all men hold in honour 
that does not, with solemn urgency and clairvoyant 
vision purged from all mortal obscurities, call upon us 
to take the road of Patriotism ? 

Listen to the two mightiest voices that have spoken 
in our language. First, hear a warning from him who 
in his own name sums up England and Patriotism. 
In the brag and froth of Jack Cade, he speaks with the 
very mouths of them that are to-day promising an In- 
ternational paradise to ignorance and sloth and sedi- 
tion: 



312 Patriotism and 

"Be brave then, for your captain is brave, and vows refor- 
mation. There shall be in England, seven halfpenny loaves sold 
for a penny; the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoopa; and I 
will make it felony to drink small beer; all the realm shall be 
in common; and in Cheapside shall my palfry go to grass; there 
shall be no more money; all shall eat and drink of my score; 
and I will apparel them all in one livery that they may agree 
like brothers and worship me, their lord." 

"As for these silken-coated slaves, I pass not; 
It is to you, good people, that I speak 
Fellow kings, I tell you that Lord Say hath gelded 
the commonwealth." 

"Now show yourselves men ; 'tis for liberty. 
We will not leave one lord, one gentleman. 
Spare none but such as go in clouted shoon." 

"Then are we in order, when most we are most out of order. 
Come, march forward! Let's go fight, but first set London 
Bridge on fire, and if you can, burn down the Tower too. Go 
some and pull down the Savoy, others to the inns of court. Down 
with them all. Away! Burn all the records of the realm: my 
mouth shall be the parliament of England." 

"And henceforth all things shall be in common." 

"The proudest peer in the realm shall not wear a head on his 
shoulders unless he pays me tribute; there shall not a maid be 
married, but she shall pay to me her maidenhead ere they have 
it; men shall hold of me in capite; and we charge and com- 
mand that their wives be as free as heart can wish." 

''Soldiers, defer the spoil of the city until night! Up Fish 
Street! Down Saint Magnus Corner! Kill and knock down! 
Throw them into the Thames!" 

It is the very tune and creed of advancing Inter- 
nationalism. We are hearing it daily, muttered or 
blatant, in all the cities of Europe. Internationalists 
will doubtless think it advisable to burn every copy of 
Shakespeare; for until he is abolished, his sovereign 
instinct for what is fundamental and permanent in 
human nature, pours its fiercest, wisest mockery upon 
their doctrines. 



Popular Education 313 

!N"ext, give heed to tlie second of our sons of light, 
whose voice was ever raised for liberty of thought and 
spiritual enfranchisement. Hear once more the great 
prophecy that England has so often justified since he 
spoke it. Do not our hearts burn within us, and our 
eyes gather with tears, when remembering what En- 
land has done in these last years, we take it again upon 
our lips, and declare with one voice that it shall yet re- 
ceive its supreme fulfilment by this people? 

Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation, rous- 
ing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her in- 
vincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle renewing her 
mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid- 
day beam; purging and unsealing her long-abused sight at the 
fountain itself of heavenly radiance; while the whole noise of 
timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twi- 
light, flutter about, amazed at what she means and in their en- 
vious gabble would prognosticate a year of sects and schisms. 

Choose, England! 

I lay down my pen at an hour when no man can 
discern what baffling and formidable shape the emerg- 
ent future may take, or in what new perplexities and 
perils our country may be involved. At such a time, 
our notions and opinions are but as dead leaves blown 
frustrate in a destroying hurricane of events that we 
can neither escape nor control. We can but lay hold of 
the great changeless elementary rules of life and con- 
duct, whereby men and nations have stayed and es- 
tablished themselves in the past. To those great 
changeless elementary rules of life and conduct, which 
we did not fashion, which we cannot annul, upon 
which all civilization and ordered human society must 
be founded — to these great primary absolute precepts 
and laws, I have tried to appeal throughout this letter. 



314 Patriotism and Education 

and have rested my arguments upon their eternal valid- 
ity. 

If, sir, in those parts of my letter which treat of 
Popular Education and its ultimate effects upon the 
national welfare, I have shown some want of respect 
and urbanity, I ask your pardon. I am sure you will 
count this a small matter in comparison with the im- 
portance of the issues I have raised. 

I am, Sir, 

Your obedient servant, 

HENHY ARTHUR JOKES. 

To THE Right Honble. H. A. L. Fisher, 
President of the Board of Education. 



